The Fall
by Unknown Kadath
Summary: The Time War was lost long before Gallifrey burned. It was lost in a single day-the day Arcadia fell. Warning, language and violence.
1. Chapter 1: Flight of the Wild Jailbird

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. Also, I've stolen a character from C. S. Lewis. (Later chapter.)

Author's Note: Beta'd by ChellusAuglerie and tardis-mole. I'm not entirely sure how long this is going to be, but on the long side. Yes, I do know where it's going. There will be references to the Eighth Doctor novels and the _Scream of the Shalka_ webcast, but you don't need to be familiar with either, and I don't think there are even any spoilers worth mentioning.

Yes, I'm still working on my 10.5 series. I've been sick recently (hence the long absence) but I'm better and hope to be posting regularly.

**The Fall**

"We have seen the best of our time: machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves."

William Shakespeare, _King Lear_

**Part I: The Silence**

_First there was silence, thinly veiled as peace_

_Then, oh, the lightening struck_

_And it started a fire_

The Heartless Bastards, "Had To Go"

Chapter One: The Flight of the Wild Jailbird

**1. Maximum Security, My Ass**

"_Get yer fuckin' hands offa me, ye damned sons a' Denebian slime devils! You think you gonna lock ME up? You couldn't lock up yer own granny—HEY! GIVE THAT BACK!_"

The Doctor heard his cellmate long before he saw her. Her voice was deeper than one would expect from a woman her size, and (at the moment) impressively loud. She had a faint accent that could have been mistaken for an American drawl or an Irish lilt, but was far older than either.

And she'd always had a deplorable vocabulary.

There was a snarl and a spate of curses, this time from one of the Malgeon guards. "Shit! The little bitch bit me!"

The sounds of commotion grew as they approached, now with yelling in three voices and the smacks of fists and truncheons impacting flesh. From the yells, not all of the impacts were landing on the prisoner.

Finally, the cell door was slammed open, casting a rectangle of light into the interior. A small woman in a grimy white tank top and threadbare jeans was shoved into view. She lunged back towards the door, was knocked backwards by a last vicious blow that caught her across the face with a sickening crunch and a spray of blood, and fell to the floor, senseless.

The guards took the opportunity to slam the door closed again and lock it.

The Doctor, who had sat up in surprise when he'd heard her voice, lay back down on his bunk and waited.

"So," came a low voice from the floor, slightly clogged. There was a sound of hawking and spitting, and the voice continued, more clearly. "You think they bought it?"

"They appear to have done," he replied. "Was it really necessary to bite him?"

"I thought it added _ver-_isi-_mil-_i-_tude_," drawled the voice, making a meal of the word. With the guards gone, she spoke with her usual tone of mild amusement. "'Sides, bastard took m'damned _hat_."

The Doctor sighed. "Please tell me you didn't use venom."

"Aw, come on, lil' brother. Ain't ye got no _faith_ in me?"

"I'm not your brother." She did have a brother, a real one—and considering her brother, it was just as well the Doctor wasn't him. "What are you doing here, Arkeros?"

"Rescuing you. Whatcha think?"

"I don't need rescuing."

"Ain't what Romana thinks."

"Romana." He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Does she think I need help escaping, or is she just worried I'll try to escape from her?"

The cell was dark, but not pitch-black, not to a Gallifreyan. The Doctor could just see her shape, sprawled out on the cell floor. She sat up with a small grunt and returned his gaze. In the dark, her pupils had gone huge and round, reflecting a green shimmer like a cat's. She could probably see him more clearly than he could see her.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, relenting a little.

She made a scoffing noise and spat again—more blood, by the smell. "Does Cold Iron know pain?" Her voice was as hard as her namesake, but still amused. "And you? Be you well, little brother?"

"Oh, yes, quite well, thank you. Never been better. And stop calling me that."

"I call all men brother, an' y'ain't but a boy. Would you rather I called you Kaeoreolis?"

"No," said the Doctor shortly. He no longer wanted to be an Oncoming Storm, or any sort of storm, in any language.

The green glints continued to regard him, taking in the youthful face, the fall of chestnut hair, the silk waistcoat and the cravat. Or that was how this regeneration had started out. This incarnation was indifferent to mirrors, but he thought he was no longer so young, and the last time he'd looked, the chestnut was touched with gray. He'd lost his green velvet jacket a few battles back.

"Like the regeneration," she said. "Ain't met this one before. Number Eight, yeah?"

"Yes."

"Only gonna meet you the once, though. Never met Nine at all. You said. Or will say."

The Doctor nodded in the dark. He could live with that. Although … "I wouldn't count on that, I really wouldn't. This is a Time War, after all."

"Noticed that. Damn, I thought _I_ caused some chaos. Ain't never seen aught like this shit. I blink and somebody's damn planet's been bombed into last Wednesday."

He wondered which future incarnation of himself she'd met. Wondered if that future could still exist. In his darker moments, he couldn't imagine peace anymore. Couldn't imagine that the War wouldn't spread out backwards and forwards in time and consume everything.

"An' they _says_ it's getting better."

"They've been saying that for some time. It even seemed to be true for a while." The Doctor sighed. "I don't suppose he sent any messages, did he?" he said, with some asperity. Trying not to hope.

"He did. But it ain't for you."

"I see."

They sat in silence for a while. This regeneration used to be on the chatty side, but these last few years, it had begun to seem like too much effort to speak. Pointless. You could have a conversation with someone and turn around and found it had never happened, or not have a conversation and turn around to find you had.

And everyone died. He knew, now, why dead men told no tales. What was the point of speaking, when everyone was dead?

But he still got bored as easily as ever. "Are you planning a daring escape anytime soon?" he asked.

"Yeah."

Silence.

"You know," said the Doctor, "there's a full two-inch gap under the door. And I know for a fact that you only need one. May I ask what you're waiting for?"

"Well, I was thinkin' I'd wait for my nose t'stop bleedin'. Among other things. An' I ain't getting _you_ out no two-inch gap."

"Why didn't you come in that way, then? Or do you just enjoy causing a spectacle?"

"Well, yeah … Got me a practical reason, too. They got them some mean force-fields here, tripwires, all this shit. See, they had this guy, right, 'bout five years back. An' he had this friend—damn, can't recall her name, something like Ramona--_Romana,_ that was it—"

Arkeros' sarcasm was more caustic than her venom.

"If you're referring to my previous incarceration by the Malgeons, it wasn't my idea for her to send micro-bots through their ventilators to shut down their security. Or for her to take down the planetary defense grid with distronic missiles. And I didn't ask for you, or anyone else, to come to my rescue this time."

"No worries," said Arkeros. "Does Cold Iron complain? I like me a challenge. Got nothin' better to do with my time, anyway."

"How did you manage to get yourself thrown in the same cell as me?"

"Well, I figure they got you in the maximum security wing. Romana gave me some intel, an' they only got two cells with humanoid-friendly toilets. One of 'em's got Thedris Ard, the cannibal—ate his last two cellmates. So the only place they got to stick me is—"

"In here. And how did you convince them to put you in the maximum security wing?"

"Ah."

"Ah? Ah? Oh, no. No no no no no. What have you done?"

"Been having me some fun with the Rebels. Thought you'd approve of that, at least. Desperate band struggling to overthrow an oppressive government, and all. I led a few raids, supplied some explosives …"

The Doctor groaned.

"Broke into three different military bases in the same night and spiked the tea in the officer's mess with industrial-strength laxatives …"

"Well, at least that's non-violent."

"Won't stay non-violent if them officers catch me up."

"So what's your plan for escaping?" Despite himself, the Doctor found that he was genuinely curious. Arkeros' plans tended to be nearly as … original … as his own.

"Well, right 'bout now the Rebels'll be launching a major campaign. They'll be setting off the bombs under the capitol building, hijacking the space-fleet, and seizing communications. That oughta distract the authorities."

"No doubt." The Doctor had some small sarcasm of his own.

"And I know you're gonna disapprove, but yesterday I stole me a car and drove it recklessly through the city until the cops pulled me over."

"Is that how you ended up here?"

"Nah. I was in disguise, an' I escaped 'fore they could haul me in. They _did_ get the drugs out of the trunk."

"Drugs? What drugs?"

"Kerrophane." Kerrophane was a mild narcotic. Possession was a low-level criminal offense. "Twenty bricks of it. Leastways, the _outsides_ was made of kerrophane. Reckon they got it in the evidence lock-up by now. That's one wing over."

"Oh?" said the Doctor. Then, sitting up abruptly, "Oh! Oh, I see. At least, I think I see. Do I see?"

The explosion shook the building hard enough to pitch him off his bunk.

"Ow!"

"Yeah, you sees."

"I see that I see. How much explosive did you have hidden in the kerrophane?"

"'Bout fifty pounds nitro-twelve, mixed with a slow-decaying chemical catalyst. That friend of yours gave me the recipe, last we met. Now, if you'll excuse me, Cold Iron's gonna go for a walk." The light-levels in the room had dropped even further—it looked like the bomb had knocked out power and the hallways were on emergency lighting. But the twin shimmers of her eyes were still visible, and one of them winked at him.

Then both shimmers vanished. The Doctor thought he could detect a faint slithering noise over the commotion, but he wasn't sure. He definitely heard the thumps and yelps outside the cell.

The door swung open. Arkeros stood silhouetted in the dim light. She had something dark and shapeless jammed on her head. It looked like it might have started out life as a fedora, several sizes too large for her.

"Come, little brother," she growled. "We got shit to do."

**2. What Would Have Been**

The Doctor sat on a branch, examining his sonic screwdriver with a jeweler's eyeglass and _tsk_ing under his breath. The dawn light was streaming through the leaves around him, bright and clean. The air smelled of greenery and dew.

And then the wind shifted, and he caught a whiff of ozone and scorched metal.

He looked down and to the east. The tree he sat in was one of a few still standing in the midst of an old battlefield. It had a number of broken branches and a scarred trunk, but it lived. Below was a slope of churned soil, a mass of craters and deadwood, now overgrown with several years' worth of weeds and wildflowers.

In the distance, he could see the ruins of the city he had just departed. It was wreathed in flames, and the sun was rising bloody behind a pall of smoke.

A rust-colored hawk glided down towards the tree, wheeling in a half-circle to lose momentum. It landed on the branch beside the Doctor, lowering its head and shaking its wings. When it looked up again, it was with Arkeros' face, like a solemn child's, and she was crouched on the branch in its place.

She was wearing an ornate bronze ring on one pale finger. A Time Ring. Evidently, the time distortions were so severe that even Arkeros found unprotected travel unpleasant or even impossible. The Doctor, like most Gallifreyan operatives these days, had a buffer implanted into his arm, and he could still feel the distortions like an incipient migraine.

"Tangore?" he asked, but the expression on her face was answer enough.

"Dead. Shot in the street." She pulled herself up to another branch and retrieved an extremely worn leather jacket and short sword, which she strapped to her back. With the jacket on, she looked larger than she was, more substantial. Its sleeves covered the rusted remains of iron manacles on her wrists, mementos of a long-ago misadventure.

"I'm sorry," she added. He was surprised to realize that she meant it. He'd forgotten that there was more in her heart than cold iron, despite what she sometimes claimed.

"He was my local contact," the Doctor explained. "He had a wife and children. He said he didn't want them to grow up under Briad's regime …"

"They won't," said Arkeros, gazing out over the flowers, towards the flames. Her face was like a statue's, serene and unmoved. She might have been any age, if she were human, from thirteen to late thirties; her skin was unlined and glowed like alabaster where the dappled sunlight hit it, but it was marked with faint rusty stains, like smudges of dried blood. There were no traces of her injuries from the night before. "Not now."

"No," agreed the Doctor, with a sigh.

The wind shifted again, stirring the Doctor's chestnut curls and Arceros' rusty locks, rustling the leaves and bringing them the scent of the flowers below. If he closed his eyes and watched the scraps of leaf-filtered sun through his lids, he could imagine that Tangore's children would grow up in a peaceful world.

Almost. Even with his eyes closed, he could feel this world dying. Time had been torn apart here. Now it was too damaged to fly a TARDIS through. In a few days, a few weeks at most, it would give way completely. The planet would be pulverized by the stresses, as its history had been. Even if the reports were right and the tide had turned against the Daleks, it was too late for this world. Evidently Arkeros could sense it as well.

He'd seen it before. He'd built up a tolerance for the physical assault of the time distortions on his senses, but never for the loss of life.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," he said. "Malgeon was meant to be in a period of peace and stability, under a single world government. I visited once, before the War. A century or two from now. Their cities were made of colored glass, like jewels in the sun. They were filled with gardens, and you could hardly tell the gardens from the buildings. Fountains—they had fountains everywhere."

"Not any more," said Arkeros. And there was enough cold iron in her, after all, not to blink at that destruction.

"There was a city in the southern hemisphere, not far from the coast, called Ilkaron," the Doctor persisted. "They had this opera hall there, with chandeliers made of artificial diamonds. Always made me nervous, thinking of good old Gaston … Anyway, one night I went there with my friend Sarah Jane, and they were playing …"

He trailed off. Arkeros had sat down on the branch next to him, listening with her strange patience. Her eyes were cat's eyes, slit-pupiled and green as the spring leaves of the tree, stained at the edges and through the whites with rust, like an untimely autumn. The skin around her eyes was stained as well, as if she'd been weeping bloody tears.

"Never mind," he said. "Never happened, now."

He pulled a battered cassette player from his pocket, popped off the back, and began tinkering. Change a circuit here, a line of programming there …

"Whatcha makin'?" asked Arkeros.

She seemed a part of this landscape, somehow. Ancient and young, alive and vital in the midst of carnage, like the tree in which they sat. Innocent and bright, yet stained with blood and death.

The Doctor had had his fill of stained things.

"You shouldn't have come," he told her.

She smiled. It was a crooked smile, as always, all stained teeth and childish glee and a wicked glint in her eyes. Like she delighted in all things in the world, the dark as well as the bright. "An' you was gonna escape … how? I wanna hear your plan. Your plans're almost as … original … as mine."

The Doctor pulled a security card from his pocket. "I'm a dangerous terrorist," he explained. "The Warden interrogated me personally. I provoked him, he got rough, and in the scuffle I picked his pocket—replacing his card with one of the guard's I'd stolen earlier. If he noticed, it was much later, and he didn't connect it with me."

"So … you was just gonna let yerself out?" Arkeros wrinkled her nose. "Too damned boring for me. What about the guards?"

"I was not going to 'just let myself out,'" corrected the Doctor. "I'd already let myself out. Out of my cell, anyway. I didn't have to go far to find a computer terminal. Programmed it to have me transferred to a lower security wing, then to change my name, then to drop the minor charges against John Bowman and have him released."

"Still boring. An' don't get you offworld. Them time distortions—they're a killer. Can't get a TARDIS through em. Why they sent me instead. An' even Cold Iron needed help." She held up her hand, flashing the Time Ring. "So what then?"

"Then I planned to use a third name and a set of forged credentials I'd programmed into the central computer system to pass myself off as a spaceport safety inspector. The Malgeon ships wouldn't get past the blockade, but if I stowed away on a Dalek courier, I'm sure I could have gotten quite a long way away."

"Not boring," conceded Arkeros. "Suicidal, mayhap, but boring it ain't. Then what?" An extra gleam of wickedness crept into her smile. "Was you gonna blow it up?"

The Doctor found himself smiling, despite himself. "Most likely."

"And then what?"

"Well, at that point I would have made up the next bit of the plan."

"A truly _foolproof_ strategy. I like mine better." She cocked her head. "It occurs to me … you was in that cell for round about three months, yeah?"

"I was."

"And ye had that key-card since you was arrested?"

"That's right."

"So you coulda broke out while there was still Gallifreyan agents flyin' in an' out of that spaceport."

The Doctor didn't answer.

"Why didn't ya?" asked Arkeros.

"Because," he explained, with exaggerated patience, "there wouldn't have been any _Dalek_ ships to hijack."

She laughed, an easy, happy sound. Despite the destruction all around them, there was a core of serenity to her. He almost despised her for that, for being able to bear the death of worlds. He wondered if his future self had told her …

Arkeros tilted her head, regarding him with her bright, stained eyes. Only curious about what he was thinking. If there was any concern in that gaze, it was only for him.

No. She didn't know.

**3. Hawk's Eye View**

Arkeros watched the Doctor as he tinkered with his sound-machine. He was using one sound-machine to tinker with another, which amused her, and he wouldn't tell her what he was doing, which did not.

She'd met a lot of Doctors, knew their story better than most. They were a good bunch, really, at heart. Hearts. They had something innocent in them, and she loved them for that. Needed a good smack, most of them, but good people.

He had a bad side, too. A real bad side, worse than her own. Sometimes he reminded her alarmingly of her mother. And there was something not quite right about Time Lords in general. Something missing. They were a race that had been engineered to live beyond its time, with only regeneration to save them from themselves. It seemed that most of them ended up going sour anyway.

Romana. Arkeros had met her before, thought she was a good sort. But now … if the Doctor was giving in to despair, Romana was giving in to denial. The Time Lady had made herself into something cold, something empty. Something less than she really was. What was it about mortals, that they got stupider instead of wiser as they aged?

Reminded her of her idiot of a brother.

And this Doctor. He was one of the younger ones, physically. And one of the ones from … Before. The Time War would break something in him. Arkeros didn't know what it was, but it would make him both better and worse. Damaged and alone, but somehow more free. Now he was a child, caught between his own beliefs and those of his people, still afraid to admit how wrong they were.

He wasn't broken yet, but he was headed for it. He looked at the green grass and the flowers and the sun like he hated them for being so bright in a world that was going down into darkness. But then, he'd always feared his own darkness, and now it seemed that it was swallowing him. This was a bad world for such a man.

And a bad world for hunting, everything coming unraveled at the edges. Better to show this place a cat's mercy, the quick bite to the neck that severed the spine and killed in an instant. The Doctor was too busy fighting his own shadow to admit it, but he would see it in time.

She wondered if he knew what was coming.

**4. Your Carriage Awaits**

The Time Lords couldn't get a TARDIS through the time distortions. And they couldn't spare the operatives to break him out of prison the old-fashioned way.

Which should have begged the question, the Doctor mused, of what (and who) they were sending instead.

His first hint that it was a) a question he really should have asked with b) an answer he really didn't want to hear was when Arkeros stood up abruptly in humanoid form (out of the small, rust-colored cat that had been washing itself) and announced, "Well, looks like our ride's here."

The Doctor looked up, and saw a very small, very battered rocket ship falling out of the sky in their general direction.

"Hope he don't go landin' on top of us," mused Arkeros, almost cheerfully. "Shit. Musta been hit. Looks like he's on fire."

"Quite a lot of fire," agreed the Doctor, standing up and preparing to dive out of the tree if the craft didn't alter course very, very, _very_ soon. Although, if it crashed on top of him, he wouldn't have to worry about it crashing with him _in_ it. "Er, terribly sorry for asking … but exactly how far are we supposed to get in that?"

"Either to the edge of them time distortions so's a TARDIS can pick us up … or t'an untimely demise."

It did change course. In fact, it changed course so drastically that it crashed (even if it had survived the impact, the word 'landing' couldn't, in all fairness, be applied to any touchdown that made a noise that loud) out of sight behind a line of trees that stood several miles away.

"Ah, well," said Arkeros. "You been cooped up in that prison so long, bit of a stroll do you good. Just hope he ain't hurt himself to bad. Or the ship."

"Who?" asked the Doctor, but Arkeros had already shifted. His only reply was the scream of a hawk as it swooped away.

He sighed, climbed down out of the tree, and began to walk over the field in the direction of the trees.

**5. Hurry Up Before This Damned Thing Turns Back Into a Pumpkin**

When the Doctor finally caught up with her, she was helping a tall, skinny man with a horsy face, receding crew-cut black hair, and an ill-fitting Gallifreyan Army uniform to patch a burned section on the tail of the ship. The ship, the Doctor was slightly dismayed to see, looked like it might still be capable of getting off the ground. Briefly.

"How bad is the damage?" he called.

"We can probably get it off the ground," Arkeros called back. "If we're all outa our bleedin' minds." She looked at the two men. "Yeah, we're good."

"Theta Sigma!" said the skinny man in the rumpled black uniform. He grinned crookedly. "It is you, isn't it? Well, well, well—which regeneration is this?"

"Drax?" asked the Doctor. Time Lords had a knack of recognizing each other, regardless of regeneration. And Drax was a bit hard to miss. "Eighth. I haven't seen you since …"

"Yeah, the Shadows! I'm on my eleventh, can you believe it?" Drax smiled trying to make a joke of it, but there was a haunted look in his eyes. "I've been shot down a few times before."

He turned abruptly and loosened a panel, making a show of examining the power couplings underneath. There was obviously nothing wrong with them. Yet.

"I've had enough close calls to put an army of cats to shame," replied the Doctor. "I don't know why, but everyone seems to want to stop to gloat before they shoot me. I suppose I just have one of those faces. Tiresome, but it gives me time to get away. They've got you working as a courier?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's right." Drax fidgeted and tugged at the tight collar of his uniform. "I'm not very good at it. They keep shifting me around, assignment to assignment. I guess I'm just no good at this sort of thing."

The Doctor opened his mouth to disagree, but then a flash and a spray of sparks and curses came from the burnt-out panel Arkeros was working on, proving Drax right. He settled for, "Well, is anyone?" Because this was war, and it was no fit occupation for man or beast, and really, who could _want_ to be good at it?

"You are," said Drax.

"Drax!" called Arkeros. "Save the chit-chat, little brother, an' get yer butt inside and check th'diagnostics. We're gonna miss our rendezvous."

"Right." Drax hurried off.

The Doctor looked up. Arkeros was apparently absorbed in her work. And she was making enough noise that she might not notice the hum of the sonic screwdriver.

He pulled the device from his pocket, held it over the third power coupling, and hit it with a quick disruptive burst of vibration. There. It wouldn't interfere with takeoff, but after the ship got out of orbit it would cut their speed considerably.

He had no intention of making their rendezvous.

"Done!" The Doctor whipped the screwdriver behind his back, but Arkeros didn't seem to have noticed. She slammed her panel shut. It gave a loud crack and fell off, and she looked at it for a moment in dismay before shrugging. "Ah, well. It'll hold together long 'nuff. Well, granted the chewin' gum lasts."

"Chewing gum?" asked the Doctor.

"Yeah. S'holding the spoon in place. An' don't be lookin' at me like that, Kaeoreolis. You done used that trick yerself. 'Twas you what taught it me."

"I must have been hoping you'd get yourself killed."

"Don't worry, Thete," said Drax, emerging from the entrance hatch. "You'll be perfectly safe. I'm piloting."

"Oh, no," said the Doctor.

**6. Pumpkin Time**

"Kaeori!" shouted Arkeros. "Hard to starboard, now!"

The Doctor wanted to make a tart remark about backseat drivers, but instead he followed her instructions immediately. As much as he liked to tell her and anyone else who would listen that she drove like a maniac (which was true) she did know what she was doing.

As a result, the shot from the Malgeon vessel only winged them, instead of hitting them dead-center. The little ship spun wildly before the Doctor could bring it under control again. "And don't call me that!" he shouted back. "I am not a meteorological phenomenon!"

"It's a _metaphor_."

"And I'm not a metaphor, either!"

Arkeros ignored him. "Drax, I need more engine power."

"I don't—"

"Third power feed to reactor four. Get me a bypass!"

The Doctor gave her a startled look, which she returned with a level stare. But before either of them could say anything, another blast rocked the little ship.

"I thought you said the rebels had taken control of the space forces!" said the Doctor.

"Ah, well. Must've missed a few."

"That's not a few, that's most of the fleet!"

He was forced to take evasive action again, this time less effectively. Drax, who was standing behind them feverishly modifying a control panel (the Doctor had refused to let him fly the ship) was thrown to the floor. Smoke began pouring out of something under the console.

"Drax, get to the escape pod," ordered Arkeros.

"Gotta lock this down—"

"Go!" shouted the Doctor.

He went. Arkeros hammered at buttons and the smoke diminished, but didn't stop. "It ain't gonna hold. We out of the distortion field?"

"No. And I'm not sure if our mayday's getting through. You said there's a TARDIS waiting to pick us up?"

"There was," said Arkeros. Her eyes moved to the tactical display. It showed the fleet closing in. Most of the fleet. She looked at the Doctor.

"Daleks," he breathed. "They've changed the timelines again."

"Shit. They know we're here?"

"I don't—oh. They do. Look!"

Saucer-shaped craft were materializing among the Malgeon needleships, rapidly overtaking them in pursuit of the fleeing ship.

"I think—" began the Doctor.

"—it's time to get the fuck out," finished Arkeros, and they flung themselves out of the cramped cockpit and bolted for the escape pod.

Drax was waiting, not in the escape pod, but outside of it, fiddling with a control panel. The other two didn't waste breath. They grabbed him as they barreled past, all three falling into the escape pod in a tangle of limbs, and the Doctor reached up and hit the emergency release button. Gravity cut out, then started to come back on, not quite compensating for the tumble of the pod.

An instant later, a massive concussion threw them all against the wall.

"Was that our ship?" asked Drax.

"No," said the Doctor, shoving wayward curls out of his eyes. "At that proximity, if that had been our ship, we would have been dead." He pointed at the small veiwport. A curved piece of metal spun past, studded with bumps. Smaller fragments, including several objects like the remains of metallic pepper-pots, drifted in its wake. "It looks like the cavalry's arrived."

A second, closer blast buffeted them and sent them into a wild spin, knocking them around the inside of the pod. The artificial gravity, unable to keep up, cut out entirely for a moment before reasserting itself at the worst possible moment and flinging them all to the floor.

"_That_," said the Doctor, where he lay sprawled in a heap, "was our ship."

The com buzzed. "_This is the _Omicron_ to life pod. We are engaging tractors. Please turn off your thrusters."_

Arkeros staggered to her feet and hit the relevant controls. "Such original names your people give to things," she commented. "Kaeori? You much hurt, there?"

The Doctor rubbed his head and sat up gingerly. His vision swam. Drax was sprawled across his legs (there not being room enough in the escape pod for more than one person to be sprawled on the floor without overlapping), apparently semiconscious and beginning to stir. "I've got a terrible headache, but I'll live."

"Y'ain't thinking of passing out on me, are you?" asked Arkeros. She slipped the Time Ring from her finger and tucked it into her pocket.

"No."

"Pity," she said. "Would've spared me doing this."

The Doctor barely had time to look up before a hard blow to the nerve cluster in his shoulder knocked him out cold.

**Coming Soon: Lords of Time**


	2. Chapter 2: Lords of Time

**Chapter Two: Lords of Time**

**Author's Note:** Okay, I seem to have stolen a character from C. S. Lewis. (Huh? How'd that happen?) So, disclaimer, not mine. Also, I'm sorry it took me so long to post this. No, wait, I'm not sorry. If you wanted me to work faster, you could have reviewed.

**7. Time Was**

Long ago, in another life, a woman in a long pink coat and a long scarf ran hand in hand with a man, a tall man with wild curling hair, who wore a long red coat and an even longer scarf. They were more than a man and a woman. They were Time Lords, children of eternity. And children they were, innocent, young as their people reckoned it, for all their long centuries and all that they had seen.

They laughed as they ran, for the world was full of wonders then. And the past was but a shadow falling away behind them, forgotten, and the future was all unknown, a shadow not yet fallen over them.

But all that was long ago.

**8. The Lady President**

The Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar, in her third incarnation, was a tall woman with elegantly coifed black hair and dark green eyes like jade. She was part of the generation that had come some centuries after the Doctor's—the generation that had, in a way, been created by the Doctor and his classmates. They'd been renegades, rogues, madmen and aberrations, back then. They'd crossed lines not to be crossed.

They weren't the first, of course. There had been some wild ones in the depths of Gallifreyan history, the occasional escapee from imposed order. And even before the Doctor, the scientists had begun to question some of the rules that bound them. But that was not from rebellion. They had merely become so small-minded that they were incapable of awe, even of the ancient laws and traditions.

They'd gotten sloppy. Perhaps that was how the Doctor and his ilk came into being. A bit of delayed maintenance on the gene looms, an inattentive eye in the preparations, a careless hand in the programming.

And while Gallifrey condemned the renegades, the Doctor and the Master alike, the High Council had seen the results of change and interference. They'd seen how stagnant Gallifrey had become. They'd seen what was possible.

They'd seen that they'd gotten away with it.

So they'd used the Doctor. Manipulated the timelines, with him as the tongs in their ever-so-clean hands. They told themselves that it was he, not they, who bore the taint of it.

And they'd allowed their researchers more leeway. Some of those researchers came from _that year,_ as the Doctor's class at the Academy became known. They made great progress in genetics, among other things. To the Time Lords of antiquity, their work would have been laughable—they discovered little that was wholly new, often only recovering what was lost. But in these latter, lesser days, they were revolutionaries.

Romana was one of the products of their researches. Her genetics were impeccable, every triple helix of her DNA spotless and precise. Her regenerations were not the stuff of luck and mischance that the Doctor had to make do with—no, hers were planned. Controlled. Guided. Her body was as she imagined it, flawless, a work of art. Her mind was her own, clear and unclouded.

Of course, what could be guided could also be misguided. Take her last regeneration. The Doctor had called her "the noblest Romana of them all." Romana preferred to think of it as her irresponsible youth. She'd been hardly a child in her first regeneration (looking back, that is—the incarnation in question had thought herself quite mature for her years) when radiation exposure had made a change, if not inevitable, then a wise option. And she'd become a counterpart to the Doctor.

Perhaps there had been a touch of youthful infatuation there. Certainly, there had been hero-worship. She'd been the obedient student in her first incarnation, knowing nothing but facts and figures, until the Doctor had opened her mind. She'd not learned rebellion from him, but questions. Question everything, instead of assuming it was right. And she'd learned the courage of doing what must be done, regardless of personal cost.

There had been a child-like wonder, then. She remembered that. But that was of the past. Sometimes, she still felt hints of it, but it was always closer to the satisfaction of a difficult scientific puzzle unraveled in the laboratory than to the Doctor's glee.

So she'd wandered, even after she'd left the Doctor. In retrospect, from the vantage of her third incarnation, she'd outgrown him. But not the travel. That had taken longer.

Still, it wasn't entirely time wasted. She'd been learning, maturing. And eventually, she'd brought that knowledge back to Gallifrey and put it to the good of her people.

She'd still been the noble blond woman, then. Still the idealist. But time cured much of that. Time and Daleks and politics. And the thought of the prophecies, the predictions out of the Matrix—of the coming end—had weighed on her more heavily than she could bear. She'd wanted nothing more than to run away.

She'd known she couldn't abandon her people, just as she'd known she wasn't up to the task ahead of her. She still had too much of the carefree wanderer in her soul—and her soul had grown so tired. So she'd given her life, channeled her being into this body. This mind. A mind not ruled by the old romanticism, a mind cold and clean and ready to wage bloody war without flinching.

Someone who wouldn't hesitate.

She'd crystallized her mind into something cold and hard, like diamonds. She could look down on her people (and on the lesser species) as parts of a greater whole. As equations—lives saved versus lives gained, resources expended versus casualties. Yes, war was a terrible thing. But she did not agonize over her choices, and they didn't haunt her dreams, except rarely.

Perhaps she just had to admit that there was a sentimental streak in her makeup.

**9. Negotiations**

"Gentlemen," said Romana. "For half a million years, your trade-vessels have plied the Shimmering Way in safety. Not only with the permission of the Time Lords, but with our protection. In fact, without our intervention, the time-corridor would have long since collapsed."

"We are most grateful for your long friendship, of course," replied the Voice of Charalin. He was a small hominid, of a delicate blue shade, in long somber robes the color of smoke against a winter sky. "And it is certain that without your assistance, the Way would be far more difficult. But, my Lady President, our scientists find the Way more stable than you seem to think. There is every possibility that it would have survived quite well on its own."

Romana dismissed this with a languid wave of her hand, making the tiny crystals stitched to the sleeves of her emerald robes glitter. It did not do to show one's feelings in these situations. She leaned back slightly in her command chair, hoping that the Voice's comm equipment was sophisticated enough to convey the self-assurance of the movement.

"But no certainty," she said. "And you must admit, our scientists are more practiced in these matters than yours."

"Perhaps, Lady President," said the Voice, admitting no such thing.

"There is, of course, the matter of right-of-way. You have been allowed free use of that time-corridor as part of the Azure Accord. An accord which also binds you with certain duties to Gallifrey."

"Among which death in your wars is not stated. Nor is ownership of the Shimmering Way strictly established."

He'd dropped the honorific, she noticed. She straightened in her seat, mentally cursing the over-elaborate robes. She preferred something more streamlined—functional, yet elegant. These weren't quite either. But it was necessary, in these times, to remind the vassals of Gallifrey of the power and antiquity of their lords. The Lords of Time.

It would have been better, of course, to have this conversation in the ancient halls of the Capitol itself, in the heart of her power, instead of broadcasting from the bridge of the _Skylark_ in flight. But needs must, when the devil drives.

She shouldn't have to have this conversation at all, come to that.

"May I remind you that of the seven black holes forming the Way, four were created or placed by my people?"

"At least two were merely … adjusted." The Voice raised a hand to forestall her response. "But this is beside the point, Lady President. True, you have the power to block us from the Way as you please—regardless of ownership. But this war—this war is yours alone. We have no obligation to fight and die for you. We will survive the loss of the Way. We will not survive the Daleks."

"You presume Gallifrey would not protect you."

"No." The Voice narrowed his eyes. "We presume you _could_ not protect us. You have done battle for years, and you cannot defeat the Dalek threat. And how many worlds have you lost to them? Too many."

"The Daleks are in retreat. They destroy worlds out of spite as they go—spite that could be thwarted, with your cooperation." Romana's voice grew cold. "And if Gallifrey were truly weak enough to fall—do you think that if the Daleks defeated us, they would leave you in peace? Is that what you really believe? You'd be fighting for your own safety, as much as ours." Couldn't he see that?

"I think … this is your fight," said the Voice. "And a possibility of life is better than the certainty of death. I am sorry, but we will not be a part of this."

_The certainty is that without Gallifreyan assistance, there will be nothing to stop the Daleks destroying all of creation. Including your backwards little world._ "But you will at least attend the summit at Arcadia?"

She spoke as if this should be taken as a given, though in fact she expected his answer.

"My apologies, Lady President." He looked slightly nervous, as if expecting an ultimatum. "But this is none of our affair."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Romana gave him a curt nod. He was an arrogant fool, but he had some courage to defy the Time Lords. She could respect that. "Good day to you."

She flicked a control switch in the arm of her chair (she preferred physical switches to such nonsense as psionic controls, easier to dislodge if they jammed) and the image of the Voice vanished from her screen.

The fool. Who was he, to defy the Time Lords? To tell her how to wage this war? To take her aid and then abandon his allies? The Charalin couldn't hope to survive without Gallifrey. But by the time they realized that, the remaining Daleks could have done untold damage to the timelines. (She did not allow the word "regroup" to cross her mind in relation to Gallifrey's enemies.)

Romana would not, would _not,_ allow her people to suffer with his, because he was unable to confront the facts.

"Your orders, Lady President?" said Commander Elah.

Romana looked up and smiled slightly, despite the situation. Her second-in-command on the flagship was yet another new breed—a tall young woman who'd inherited her human mother's unruly red mane and her Gallifreyan father's angular face, along with all the loyalty and courage of both parents. Leela had been with Romana through many adventures, but humans were a short-lived species. Even with the help of Time Lord medical technology.

Elah would not be short-lived. Part human, part Gallifreyan, all Time Lord. And not just a new breed. The first of the next breed. The future of a world.

"We can't allow this challenge to stand," said Romana. "Of course we could manage without them—but it won't do to have our other allies following their lead. Get me Palanzar. Get me Coriakin."

"Yes, ma'am." Elah gave a short nod. Neither woman liked it, but it was necessary.

In that way, Romana was glad that Elah was with her, and not Leela. Elah didn't have her mother's human cultural biases, didn't argue with what must be done.

So why did she find herself wishing that Leela were here to stand in her way?

**10. The Assassin of Dreams**

"Yes, Lady President," said Captain Palanzar. "At once."

The tiny, perfect hologram of the President nodded. "Tell Coriakin to scan the timelines. I want only the bare minimum of changes." Her voice fizzed and cracked, in contrast to her form. There had been a great deal of interference in this sector lately. Coriakin suspected that it was either the result of the shifting timelines or the shields that protected Arcadia's past from change.

"Of course, Lady President."

The hologram flickered once and was gone. Pity. It was quite decorative—which was about Palanzar's only use for his President. To him, she represented the worst of both modern and ancient Gallifrey. The disregard for tradition of the younger generation, coupled with the sentimental whims of a woman—the whims that had ruled Gallifrey in those primitive, superstitious days before Rassilon.

Perhaps they needed another Rassilon to save them from themselves.

Palanzar himself was an unremarkable-looking man, on the slight side, with a thin face and mouse-colored hair. He was not entirely pleased with this regeneration, but he made do. And it was not without its advantages. Very few people, on meeting him in person, realized the immense power he held.

They called him the Assassin of Dreams.

He preferred to think of himself as the Architect of Dreams. An artist, a surgeon, skillfully making small, precise incisions in the fabric of history. Making it better. And all done quietly, behind the scenes. The only reward he asked was a brighter future for his people.

"Lieutenant Fradan." He turned to the young man standing at his side. "Prepare the intervention team."

"Yes, sir."

Good man, Fradan, thought Palanzar. Arcadian-born, but loyal enough for all that. He was one of those rare individuals in which the Gallifreyan blood ran nearly pure. Only the matt black hair and the faint gray sheen to his skin showed his ancestry. A throwback to better days.

Palanzar strode from the sleek, shining communications room and headed, not for Coriakin, but for his own quarters. If anyone asked, he could think of any number of harmless explanations for the detour.

His quarters were in one of the newer parts of the Orb. He'd had them redecorated from the original Arcadian style of bright colors and asymmetrical shapes. Now they resembled the cloistered rooms of the Capitol, dark metals and Spartan furnishings.

He went to his desk, ignoring the comm unit built into it and pressing his thumb into a small depression on the side. The concealed scanner verified his bio-print with a bleep, and a panel popped open to reveal a second comm unit. A rather less official one.

"_Report,_" came a tinny voice. There was no picture. It used unnecessary bandwidth and increased the odds of detection. Then, too, it was safer if the Brotherhood did not know each other by sight.

"The President has ordered an intervention on the Charalin Hegemony," said Palanzar. "Minimal, of course. How should I procede?"

"_Her instructions were explicit?_"

"Explicit that the intervention was to be minimal. I am to alter as little as possible."

"_Bend that instruction if you can do so without being detected. But do not disobey. Take no risks. It is too soon to move against the President openly."_

"Understood."

**11. Shadows**

"Suit check," barked Fradan.

The men of Palanzar's intervention team formed up into pairs, checking the circuits embedded in each other's shield-suits. It was a dangerous job, and a malfunction at the wrong moment during a mission could expose the wearer to the Time Winds or worse.

There were twenty men on the team, including Fradan and Palanzar. In the beginning, most of them had been natives of Gallifrey. But as team members were transferred or lost, Fradan had encouraged the selection of Arcadian replacements. It was easier to interview local candidates, and he argued that they were better adapted to the work. Palanzar had to be convinced on a case-by-case basis, but the team was now over half Arcadian. And Palanzar was increasingly willing to trust Fradan with the details of the operation, while he preoccupied himself with grand schemes.

So far, he seemed to suspect nothing. Except, perhaps, that Fradan had a patriotic preference for working with his fellow countrymen.

"Fradan!" said Palanzar, striding into the room and adjusting his own body-armor. "Are the men ready?"

Fradan looked around the room, catching the eyes of the Arcadians. For some reason, they seemed to stick out more than ever today. Like shadows had fallen over their faces, deepening the gray tinge and draining all expression from their gazes.

Like a convocation of corpses.

"Yes, sir," replied Fradan. And if Palanzar noticed that his lieutenant's face darkened while his shadow flickered and paled, he chalked it up to a trick of the light.

**12. No Negotiations**

"Gentlemen," said Romana. "For half a million years, your trade-vessels have plied the Shimmering Way in safety. Not only with the permission of the Time Lords, but with our protection. In fact, without our intervention, the time-corridor would have long since collapsed."

"We are most grateful for your long friendship, Lady President," replied the Voice of Charalin. He was a tall man, of obviously Gallifreyan ancestry, wearing gray robes that paid subtle homage to the formal apparel of the Time Lords. Romana wondered if this had all been necessary, or if Palanzar had begun to overstep his authority. "And we have not forgotten the mother world."

"Then you will send a delegation to the Summit?" said Romana, quashing her guilt.

"As you command, Lady President," said the Voice, bowing low. "They will be at Arcadia within the day."

**Coming Soon: Voyage to Arcadia**


	3. Chapter 3: Voyage to Arcadia

**Chapter Three: Voyage to Arcadia**

**13. Throwback**

Sometimes he had dreams that weren't his own.

The Doctor had been birthed from a Loom—fabricated a good few steps towards the grave with no cradle to be seen, woven from ancestors and cousins, an ancient databank of genetics. He had no mother as humans understood the term. No father. A vague gesture at a childhood.

No Gallifreyan had, not since the Dark Times. All of that had been done away with, long ago.

Sometimes, though, he dreamed of such things. Memories were not supposed to come from the Loom along with the ancestral DNA, but he thought sometimes they did. The biodata was supposed to be thoroughly remixed before each birth, too, but he supposed sometimes it wasn't. He'd known from his creation that he was different, that something had gone wrong.

He tried not to think of it too often. It was dangerous knowledge. But sometimes he dreamed of a life before these lives, of a past shadow that informed his current essence, of _mother_ and _father_ and _wife_ and _children._ Of _granddaughter._

She'd been a link between him and his haunted dreams, but a barrier, as well. Part of his current life but sprung from the deep past, but never speaking of it, letting him forget.

Perhaps it was because she was gone that the dreams came more often, now.

"_Mama, look! Gorra-fruit! They have gorra-fruit here!"_

_He was seven years old. It was his first time on Gallifrey, and his mother and father had taken him with them to the great market. The sights and sounds and smells were overwhelming, and the telepathic chatter was a constant roar in his head._

"_I don't know how you can even think of eating," laughed his father. "All this racket is making my stomach turn."_

_His father was a tall man with kindly blue-green eyes and chestnut hair (now silver at the temples) and a neat goatee. And his name was—_

"_Mama, can we get some? Mama? Say yes, please, Mama?"_

"_Perhaps later," said his mother. "If you are very good."_

_His mother was a vague shape at his side, a face he couldn't remember, and a name further out of reach than his father's. But her hand was warm on his, and her voice reminded him of home, back in the mists of time when he was innocent, and knew what a home was. _

**14. Armed Escort**

"Oooo, look at them things. They looks nifty."

Arkeros. Not the Doctor's first choice of things he wanted to hear when he woke up. Of course, it was better than, "EXTERMINATE!"

Probably.

He'd started to come to as he was wheeled in and transferred from a stretcher to a soft surface (delightfully soft, after the Malgeon prison and the subsequent tree). But he lay still while a medical scanner was run over him, and a hypo applied to his arm. He analyzed the contents as they entered his bloodstream. Vitamins and a mild stimulant.

"You're not to touch them," said an unfamiliar male voice.

"But you got one. Why does you get one, an' Cold Iron don't?"

"I am a Time Lord. This equipment is property of the Gallifreyan military. Access to our technology is strictly limited—and speaking of which, I'll ask you to return the Time Ring you were issued with at the start of your mission."

There was a pause. "Damn," said Arkeros. "Know I had that thing when we left Malgeon … s'pose must've dropped it in the fight. It ain't in the life-pod, is it?" Then, before the stranger could answer, "Oh, look. Think he's wakin' up."

The Doctor let his eyelids open to half-mast and sat up with a groan—not entirely faked. Arkeros had hit him very hard. He was in a stark white room with glowing roundels in the walls and gray, functional furniture. The bunk was a retractable pallet, set into the wall. A military TARDIS. "Did we make it?" he asked.

"Yep." The chairs weren't designed for sprawling, but Arkeros was a past master, and managed it handily. She slouched, with one leg over the arm of the chair and the other swinging in space, arms draped over the backrest and hat pulled down low over her eyes. The brim cast her face into shadow, leaving only a crooked grin, like the Cheshire Cat's evil twin.

Standing where he could watch both Arkeros and the Doctor was a young-ish Time Lord with dark hair and a sallow, sullen face. He wore a black uniform with a lieutenant's stripes, and he was holding a large rifle, which he kept stroking. The Doctor guessed him to be young, first or second regeneration and only a few centuries old. He had the slightly wild eyes of someone who had been wrenched out of a life of tedious study and onto the front lines, and left there just a bit too long.

Drax was sitting in a chair off to the side, trying to make himself look smaller than he was. He seemed to be hoping everyone would forget he was there.

"Lieutenant Loryan, of the Seventh Fleet," said the uniformed Time Lord. "Agent Theta Sigma, I have orders to accompany you to the _Skylark._ Lady President Romana wishes to see you."

"Doctor," corrected the Doctor. He swung his legs off the bunk, wincing and rubbing at them as if he had a cramp. "My, what a wonderful ship you have here! Type 90, isn't it? Do you mind if I take a walk around? Work some of the kinks out of my legs?"

"Negative!" barked Loryan. "You will remain here. I have orders to accompany you at all times."

"What, even into the lavatory?"

Loryan hesitated, brow creasing. Apparently he hadn't thought of that. Then his jaw set more firmly than ever. "Affirmative!"

The Doctor saw that there were transparent equipment lockers full of weapons along the far wall.

"Little brother don't wanna let me play with 'em," said Arkeros, following his gaze.

"They are. Not. Toys," Loryan bit out. "They are weapons of war. They're the product of our most advanced technology."

"Aw, come on. I just wants t'look at 'em. How d'they work?"

"You wouldn't understand," said Loryan, loftily. "We Time Lords have, er, powerful magic."

The Doctor suspected that Loryan didn't have much exposure to aliens. Well, even in midst of a war, Time Lords didn't like to mix with what they saw as lesser species. He himself had thought that way, once, and it had taken a long time to get over. Fortunately, he was blessed with an inherently humble nature.

Arkeros cocked her head, like a curious bird. "Really? Don't _look_ like no magic. Thought it were tri-phased zeta-wave loopers."

"Quad-phased," said Drax. "With hyper-amps and feedback buffers."

"Shut up!" barked Loryan. Drax hunched further down in his seat.

Arkeros jerked her chin in Loryan's direction. "He's just pissed cos we was nearly late," she told the Doctor, in the sort of lowered voice that is meant to be overheard. "Dunno why. You lot got yerselves a time machine. You can meet up with the _Skylark_ any ol' time you please."

"It doesn't work like that," explained Loryan, with poorly disguised impatience. "This is _temporal warfare._ Every time we cross our relative timelines, we leave ourselves open to attack."

"Y'see," said Drax, "if our time-tracks are out of sync, the differential is expressed as—"

"Shut up!" barked Loryan. Then, to Arkeros, "The _Skylark_ can't wait for us. If we missed the rendezvous, the _Omicron_ would be forced to make a detour from our scheduled route to deliver the pri—Agent Theta Sigma to Arkadia ourselves."

"Doctor," said the Doctor. Everyone ignored him.

"Don't make no nevermind to me," said Arkeros. "Leave all that time mumbo-jumbo to your lot. Long's I get paid."

Loryan wrinkled his nose, an expression of disgust at such scientific ignorance and mercenary greed. Or maybe he just wasn't used to the smell of aliens. Arkeros gave off a distinct aroma, though not offensively strong, of cinnamon and cats. With, to sensitive Gallifreyan noses, subtle undertones of exotic flowers and old blood, like the crypt of someone who has died by violence.

"You will be paid, don't worry."

"Do I get a gun?" asked the Doctor.

"No, you don't," said Loryan.

"Why not? I'm a Time Lord, after all. Or are you afraid I'll use it to escape?"

Loryan sneered down his nose at the Doctor. His face seemed to be specially adapted for sneering—perhaps his genetics had been engineered for it. "Everyone knows Theta Sigma doesn't use a gun. They say you're a pacifist. Don't have the backbone to do any of the real fighting, so you sneak and spy while the rest of us put our necks on the lines."

"Is that what they say," said the Doctor. Suddenly, he felt very tired.

**15. Twenty Minutes**

Arkeros fidgeted. "How much longer?"

"Twenty minutes."

Twenty minutes. The Doctor considered his options. If he waited until after he was handed over to Romana, he would at least be rid of Arkeros—or would he? If she stayed, he would have both of them to contend with. And Romana was sure to have other guards on him. Here, he only had Arkeros and Loryan. Well, maybe there were a few outside the door, but no doubt he could handle them.

Still, twenty minutes wasn't much time.

"Twenty minutes?" said Arkeros. "That's long 'nuff t'show me yer gun."

"Oh, just give it to her," said the Doctor. He got up and stretched, pacing slowly around the corner of the room. "Lauren or whatever your name was. She's going to end up with one sooner or later. You're far less likely to get hurt if you just give in."

"Get hurt? Get hurt?" sputtered Loryan. "I'm a Time Lord, a soldier of Gallifrey! I'm the product of millions of years of careful genetic selection, fifty years of training, and over two hundred years of combat experience. And I've got a series-four blaster, along with thirteen other weapons concealed about my person."

"She's got claws," said the Doctor, just to help things along.

Loryan looked from him to Arkeros. "No, she doesn't," he pointed out.

Arkeros examined her fingernails, which were short and stained rusty-brown. Then she shrugged. "Got me a magic sword," she said. "An' some limes. An' hexes. An' pixie dust—"

"_Don't even think about it!_" snapped the Doctor. He didn't want things going _too_ far. "Remember what happened last time?"

Arkeros made a face at him. Then she shrugged and turned back to Loryan. "So … you got, what? Bit over two an' a half centuries experience, one way or t'other?"

"Yes," said Loryan. "I'm just under three hundred years old. We're a long-lived people."

The Doctor repressed a smile.

"Yer still mortal," scoffed Arkeros. "You looks older'n I, an' y'ain't an eighth my age. I was scrappin' an' brawlin' two thousand years 'fore you got born. Or spawned, or whatever."

"'Scrapping?'" said Loryan, his indignation. "'Brawling?' I was at the battle of Yestat. Five times! We fought with N-Forms and particle imploders and gravity traps! Don't talk to me about …"

The Doctor left them to it and resumed pacing. Quite by chance, this took him to a computer terminal set in the wall by the equipment lockers. Loryan and Arkeros were to absorbed in each other to notice.

"What species are you, anyway?" asked Loryan.

"Ra'puuka," said Arkeros.

"Never heard of them."

"Oh, they're not local," said Drax. "They evolved in dimensional rifts between universes with opposing entropy gradients—"

"Shut up!" barked Loryan.

The _Omicron,_ the Doctor noted, had a crew compliment of twenty, not including Loryan. He was a special agent, a bit loopy from too many missions, sent especially to prevent the Doctor's escape. He had a very high mission success rate.

Too bad, really, that it was about to drop.

Course correction. The Doctor's presidential codes were old, but still serviceable. The TARDIS knew that he wasn't supposed to be altering their course, and it struggled against accepting them, but a swipe of his thumb over the biodata scanner put a stop to that. A few more keystrokes ensured that the bridge crew wouldn't be alerted.

"I've been dead over a hundred times," said Loryan. "Command brought me back using temporal manipulators, but I remember every second of it. It's cold, and dark, and the silence is terrible." He sounded proud of this.

"Got me beat there," said Arkeros. "Smacks of carelessness, that. Then, my kind don't die easy. I can tell ye that for sure. Ain't much but cold iron bothers us, an' don't bother me."

The Doctor risked a glance round as he sent the _Omicron_ several centuries off-course. Arkeros had rolled up one sleeve, showing Loryan one of the iron manacles on her wrist—and how the metal had corroded the flesh beneath. She grinned.

"My people are hunters," she said. "But I specialize in huntin' my own kind. The name of Cold Iron an' the name of Death are the same in our language, an' they're both Arkeros."

Loryan undid the top buttons of his uniform and pulled it aside to reveal a web of circuitry embedded in his skin. "Trionic implants. I have an artificial third heart to keep me going even if the other two fail, artron loopers to bypass regeneration, and a chronon-shielded memory-chip backing up my cerebral cortex. My speed and reflexes have been artificially enhanced even beyond that of a normal Gallifreyan."

As the Doctor calculated the best route to the emergency lifepods, Loryan picked up a chair and started bending the legs.

"Duralloy," he sneered.

Arkeros tried it with her own chair, and found it somewhat more difficult. "So. Bit stronger than me," she conceded, still not terribly impressed. "Don't matter, it's speed what really counts." She pulled a small green object from her pocket. "Catch!"

The Doctor flinched, but Loryan caught it easily. "What is it?" he asked. "Some sort of fruit?"

"Yep. 'S a lime." Arkeros caught it again when Loryan tossed it to her, and pitched it back.

Drax got up and started edging further away. The problem was, he didn't have much of anywhere to go.

"Why's it got writing on it?" Loryan wanted to know.

"Magic spell."

"Ah," said Loryan, with a patronizing little sniff. He was humoring her, and making sure she knew it. "And what's the purpose of the spell?"

"Gives it a bit a extra kick. Ye gives it th' right flick of the wrist, an' …"

She snapped her arm forward. The lime was barely visible even as a green blur as it rocketed across the room, hit Loryan between the eyes with a meaty 'thunk!' and knocked him off his feet.

The Doctor slapped the control panel of the nearest weapons locker and grabbed a pulse-rifle when the door slid up. It was a nasty, ugly thing, big and black, powerful enough to take down a Special Weapons Dalek and designed to work even in a state of temporal grace, in case a TARDIS were breached.

"Ha hah!" crowed Arkeros. "Gotcha, suckaaaah! FUCK!"

The Doctor had aimed at her midsection. The first shot knocked the wind out of her, and he followed up with two more before she went down. Then another, as she rolled back to her feet and sprang at him.

He swung the stock of the rifle into her chin, putting all of his considerable strength into it, and heard something crack. Arkeros flew backward into her chair, which tipped over, leaving only her booted feet sticking up into view.

"Ow," she said, momentarily.

The Doctor spun around to cover Loryan. "Drop it!" he snapped, as Loryan started to raise his own gun.

"You wouldn't," said Loryan. But now the contempt in his eyes had been replaced with wariness. He looked at the Doctor like he'd never seen him before.

"A few years ago, perhaps," agreed the Doctor. He felt himself grinning, a humorless, wild expression that verged on madness, and wondered what he looked like. He found he didn't much care. "But I would now. I have no intention of going to Arcadia, with you or Romana or anyone else. I think you're the one who won't shoot—you have orders to bring me in alive, don't you? Now drop it!"

"Go on, then," said Loryan. The Doctor noted that he had a green smudge on his forehead. "Go on and shoot, if you dare. It won't do you any good. I've got a class-three energy buffer."

"No, you don't," said Drax, from underneath a chair. "Arkeros picked your pocket when we came on board."

"I hardly think—" began Loryan, his hand going to his pocket. Then his eyes went wide, and he lowered his rifle very, very carefully to the ground. "Is that why she took so long to die?"

"Oh, she's not dead," said the Doctor, grinning even more widely. "She's just … resting. And no. As she told you, her people don't die easily. I suspect that if she'd still had the energy buffer, I would be the one with the head injury. Or worse. But shortly after I woke up, I picked _her_ pocket. I have the buffer now—so you see, that gun really wouldn't have done you any good."

"Fuck," muttered Arkeros, with some feeling.

"You can't stop me," said the Doctor. "I'll be taking my leave of you now. I wish, I really wish, that I could say it's been a pleasure, but—"

At that moment, the hexed lime Arkeros had slipped into his pocket while he'd been unconscious detonated, and he knew no more.

**16. A Slight Delay**

Loryan manhandled the would-be deserter back onto the bunk. He had a large green stain spreading across the front of his vest, and he was out cold. But Loryan was taking no chances. He gave his prisoner a shot of tranquilizer. He'd be unconscious when Loryan handed him over to the President, but that suited Loryan just fine.

Miserable bastard. Loryan wasn't sure if he was a traitor or merely a coward. Theta Sigma—the man who refused to go armed, refused to kill, refused to follow any sort of military discipline. He wore eccentric clothes and grew his hair long, and he fraternized with lesser species. He seemed half-alien himself. Loryan had heard rumors that Theta Sigma was actually Arcadian, not Gallifreyan, and now he almost believed it.

Maybe he had some sort of past on Arcadia. Maybe that was why he didn't want to go back.

More likely he was just a lily-livered, spineless, bleeding-hearts pacifist. Loryan could never understand them. They didn't want to kill, but they could stand by and watch other people die. He suspected that they were all cowards, really, using their 'morality' as an excuse not to risk their own lives in combat. Whatever they were, they were soft. Squeamish. Useless.

And then Theta Sigma had shot the little alien bounty hunter. Not that Loryan wouldn't have done the same in an instant, if she'd given him half an excuse. But Theta Sigma had shot her without hesitation, his face twisted into a snarl like some sort of … animal, struck her down without hesitation. Loryan knew from experience that it took time to learn that sort of violence. He wondered what else Theta Sigma had done in his lives.

He'd been grinning when he pointed the gun at Loryan, and there'd been something wild in his eyes, like a combat veteran who'd seen too much horror and forgotten how to stop killing. For a moment, Loryan had wondered if he'd actually do it.

"Arrrgh," said the little alien. Loryan turned and saw her getting to her feet. Her head hung at an odd angle, and she moved jerkily, like she didn't quite have control of her limbs, but Loryan fingered the safety of his rifle nonetheless. He'd thought she would be dead by now. Probably Theta Sigma had lowered the power of his weapon before he shot her—just another trick. But it was always best to be careful with unknown aliens.

He picked up Theta Sigma's gun, intending to get it out of her reach. It was set on maximum, and it had a crack in the duralinium stock where it had impacted with the bounty hunter's jaw.

Loryan looked up in disbelief.

"Ooo," she said. She put one hand to her left temple and the other to the right of her chin, and gave her head a sharp twist. Her neck straightened with an audible crunch. "Broke my fuckin' neck," she explained, scowling at Theta Sigma's unconscious form.

"Don't kill him," warned Loryan, giving her a wide berth as she stalked forward.

"Ain't gonna kill him," she growled. She pulled rope from her pocket and tied Theta Sigma's hands. Then she opened his shirt, took a small black bottle out of her pocket, and began writing arcane symbols on the bare skin of his chest. "Bindin' spell. Cold Iron is patient, but not _that_ patient. Wanna get him to her Ladyship without any more drama."

"Quite," said Loryan. "But I've given him a sedative, er, sleeping potion." Best put it in terms a primitive could understand. "I'm sure it will keep him quiet."

"Huh," sniffed the little alien, unconvinced. Even if someone had taught her to use high-tech weaponry, they'd evidently neglected to cover modern medicine. "Ain't takin' no chances. Say, we almost there yet?"

Loryan opened his mouth to tell her that of course they were. Then he stopped. He had a perfect time sense, and it was telling him that they should, in fact, have reached the rendezvous point some five minutes ago.

The comm unit on his wrist beeped. It was the bridge. They had just discovered that not only were they off course, they weren't sure where they were. But it appeared that someone had used presidential override codes to access the flight controls.

Loryan looked at the prisoner in disbelief.

"Otherfucking son of a _Stitch_," he swore.

"Oh, dear," said the little alien. Loryan wasn't good at judging alien expressions, and this one's undersized height and oversized headgear made him feel like he was conversing with a perambulating hat, but he somehow got the feeling that she was laughing at him.

"We're going to have to take him to Arcadia ourselves," he snapped. "Three hours. _At least_."

"Cold Iron don't mind," said the alien. "Hey, that gives ye time t'show me yer gun."

**Coming Soon: Convergence**


	4. Chapter 4: Convergence

**Chapter Four: Convergence**

**17. Brave New World**

"Approaching Arcadia, Ma'am," said Elah. Then, stepping for a moment out of her role as the deferential Commander, "I'd like—I'd like to see it, if I may."

Romana smiled, a little sadly. The time was coming when that role would end. Very soon. Elah would leave behind her promising career and all that went with it, heading for a new future.

Time to start letting go.

"Of course," she replied. She nodded to the ensign manning the comm station, and he brought up the full visual array.

The pearly walls of the _Skylark_ vanished, replaced by the dark of space, stars drifting under their feet as if they walked through vacuum. Even the sounds of the bridge seemed muffled, swallowed by a silence that was almost a sound in itself.

And before them … the Medusa Cascade. Swirls of gas and dust, softly lit by young stars and the particle excitation of the Great Rift, veils of color shrouding something like a gleaming flower. A delicate confection of silver filigree and spun glass, shining with all the colors of the nebula but magnified, and with a deep rose glow of its own at its heart.

Arcadia.

It was an artificial habitat, great crystal domes filled with forests, meadows, oceans, and deserts, all strung together. The rose glow was the light of a captive sun, held in a tiny fold of space at the center. It was still listed on the charts as the Bognor Regis system, a red dwarf star circled by a small planetoid. Once the planetoid had been home to a pre-Rassilon era Gallifreyan colony, before the gravitational stresses of the rift had broken it apart. The population had been evacuated to Arcadia station, which in turn had incorporated the debris as it grew. The star had become the heart of Arcadia. It gave the station its light, heat, and fueled its chrononic generators. Those generators, in turn, powered Arcadia's shields, and made it an impregnable fortress guarding the Rift.

Romana stood and went to Elah's side. She took the young woman's hand. It no longer mattered if they maintained the public appearance of discipline. That part of Elah's life was over.

"It's very beautiful," said Elah. The lights illuminated her face softly, making her look younger than she was. A wondering child, on the verge of her first steps into a new life. She soaked up the sight, drinking it with her eyes.

She would never see it this way again.

Romana didn't look at Arcadia. She could see it again. And right now, she put far less value in fortresses than in the young woman at her side, the daughter of her lost friend and a friend herself. Friends were hard to come by for a President of Gallifrey, still harder for a President at war.

She was glad, now, that the _Omicron_ had been delayed. She wouldn't have dared to let the Doctor out of her sight, and he would have brooded and moralized, spoiling the moment.

At length, Elah turned to her. Tears had made shining tracks down her cheeks, but her voice was steady.

"I'm ready, Romana," she said.

"All right." Romana swallowed, fighting back tears of her own as if she were some sort of ape-descendant, and gave the order to take them in.

**18. A Three-Hour Tour**

"And then the Toclofane King returned to the Vortex, leaving little Thoralindalinor the magic data-crystals that told her how to build her very own TARDIS. And she did build it, and she flew it all the way home to Gallifrey, where she applied herself to her studies and never had any adventures, ever again, and she became a mid-level public servant and lived as a productive member of society ever after. The end," said Loryan. "There. Are you happy?"

Arkeros, who had been listening with wide, rapt eyes, made a face. "I didn't like the way it ended. Tell me another."

Loryan sputtered. "If you think I have nothing better to do than sit her and tell nursery tales to savages—"

Arkeros made a low snarling noise in the back of her throat, curling up her lip just enough to show a fang. She hefted the distronic rifle.

Loryan's jaw snapped shut. He gritted his teeth, struggling to control his temper. "What do you want to hear?" he ground out.

"There's 'The Five Hundred Hearts of Lord Barankarinin,'" suggested Drax.

Loryan looked like he was about to tell Drax to shut up, but another growl from Arkeros stopped him. "I wanna hear it," she said.

The Doctor would have liked to have told Loryan to stop whining and humor her. After all, there was nothing worse than a bored 'Puuka. But he supposed Loryan had already figured that out.

Anyway, his mouth was duct-taped shut.

His escape attempts had kept her amused for a few hours. There had been five in all. Some of them had almost worked. He was especially proud of the one with the rubber duck, the piece of string, and the time-loop.

The sedative had worn off much faster than Loryan had expected. The Doctor had always metabolized such things quickly. And he had a counter-charm in his pocket which protected him from Arkeros' spell—fortunately, she wasn't terribly good at magic.

In the end he'd gotten desperate and used the sonic neuro-disrupter. He'd built it in the tree on Malgeon, just in case, and he'd been as surprised as Arkeros when it actually worked. Well, as surprised as Arkeros had been in the brief interval before it rendered her unconscious. Unfortunately, Loryan's enhanced nervous system wasn't affected.

He and Arkeros had started to go through the Doctor's pockets after they'd subdued him, making sure he didn't have any more nasty tricks. "Rassilon," muttered Loryan. "The dimensions of his clothes are worse than a derelict TARDIS. I think he's in violation of at least ten safety regulations, and that's only his waistcoat. We're going to be here all day."

Arkeros had rolled her eyes. "No we ain't," she said. "An' they says Time Lords is clever. Pfah!"

"What?" said Loryan.

"Just take off his clothes," sighed Arkeros.

So he'd ended up in his underthings, wrapped in duct tape from head to toe to keep him out of trouble.

That left Arkeros with nothing to do. She tried arm-wrestling with Loryan (who had reminded her that her neck was broken, and been informed that it had got better) and lost. She knew Loryan was stronger than her, so the Doctor wondered if she'd done it just to put him off his guard.

Shortly after that, when Loryan wasn't looking, she'd shifted into the little cat (it seemed no one had bothered to tell the lieutenant that she was a shapeshifter) and darted under a chair behind him. And while he was looking around, trying to figure out where she'd gone, she'd gone back to humanoid form and whacked him over the head with the chair. It had only stunned him for a moment, but Arkeros only needed a moment. Loryan found himself staring down the wrong end of his own weapon. He still hadn't figured out how she'd done it.

And the festivities had commenced.

The Doctor started humming the theme from "Gilligan's Island" behind his duct tape. Loryan glared at him, but Arkeros laughed, and started to sing along.

**19. Utopia**

The Docks of Arcadia were in the top half of a bio-sphere, more artificial than most, with carefully maintained parks above and levels of machinery below. The main concourse was a vast area, high-ceilinged and open, with one wall a great curving pane of transparent titanium through which the nebula could be seen. Spurs of metal protruded from it at intervals, providing mooring and airlocks for larger ships, and double-layered ports allowed smaller vessels to come inside. Far beyond the window, the force-shields shimmered as dust was atomized against them. Nothing could get through; not dust, not Daleks.

The Docks were decorated in the Arcadian style—bright colors, vibrant purples and teals and golds, lines more simplified and abstract than any Gallifreyan structure. But there were signs everywhere of an empire at war. Battered ships and injured soldiers, black uniforms and battlecruisers. Silver servo-droids bustled among them, pushing float-pallets of cargo and supplies.

Elah stared around her in wonder. She'd already lived longer than her mother, Romana realized with a pang, and she'd seen so much less of the universe.

The War would end soon, she caught herself thinking, maybe then—but no.

"My Lady President." A tall, thin woman of middle years in a body-suit of magenta and aquamarine swirls approached them, trailed by a phalanx of functionaries with data-pads. Jaelin Thross, Arcadia's Chief Administrator.

"Administrator," said Romana.

"Welcome back to Arcadia," said Thross, grabbing a data-pad from the man at her left. She had a clipped, no-nonsense manner, and hair as steel-gray as her skin. "The Charalin, Movellan, Drorsh and Qanuk delegations have arrived. The Ganedans are en route and will be here within the hour. No word on the Hewans."

"I see," said Romana. This could be another job for Palanzar. Though in truth, the Hewans were not as important to the war effort as the Ganedans. "Any reports from the Special Research Project?"

Thross's lips compressed briefly. She was not privy to the details of the SRP, which irked her, but she would live with it. "I believe there are several routine reports awaiting your attention. And Commander Xyritu would like you to inspect the Vault."

"Thank you. Tell her I'll meet with her this evening, if the negotiations permit. In the meantime, I'd like to greet the Ganedans personally."

"Of course," said Thross, inclining her head. "If you'll come this way, Madame President?"

Elah pulled her eyes away from the scenery and made to follow, but Romana held up her hand. "Go explore," she said. "Enjoy yourself. You've earned it, you know."

The young woman hesitated just a moment, torn. "Yes, ma'am," she said. "Thank you."

**20. The Vault**

The Vault was only a small section of the SRP, but it was the most heavily guarded. The entire project had its own small sphere of Arcadia, most of it devoted to security, a fortress within the fortress. And the Vault was another fortress within that.

The Vault was buried at the heart of the SRP sphere, surrounded by empty corridors. It was constantly guarded by two soldiers, no less, no more. The soldiers didn't know what was inside. Only a few select researchers had permission, or indeed any legitimate business, to enter this section of the sphere; anyone else was to be shot on sight.

Relgan and Durok were the two guards currently on duty. It was a difficult assignment, combining unending boredom with the unending fear of something … interesting … happening. Relgan wished it were someone else's job. After all, it was supposed to be impossible to get into the Vault.

More importantly, from his perspective, it was supposed to be impossible for anything to get out.

"Do you feel that, Durok?" he asked. The air felt like … like an ionizer going wrong. It prickled, and he could taste something like metal and electricity at the back of his throat. It had been building up for weeks, but it was worse than ever today.

"Feel what?" said Durok.

"Like … never mind." Relgan didn't want to mention that sometimes he thought he saw things moving out of the corners of his eyes. Or flashes of pale blue light, like sparks, dancing over the doors.

Durok didn't seem bothered by it. Or maybe he was, it was hard to tell. He'd become very withdrawn the last few days. He didn't speak unless spoken to, and then he responded in monotones and monosyllables. Probably the stress, getting to him.

Damned corridors. They had bright lights, but somehow they just made the place seem darker, full of shadowed corners. But that was all it was. Just shadows, even if sometimes they seemed to move. After all, if anything were really there, the scanners would have picked up on—

There was a distinct crackle from behind Relgan. He spun, and saw energy sizzling over the triple-layer duralinium doors.

"Durok!" he said. "Look out! There's—no! _No!_"

From the shadows of the corridor emerged shapes that were not shadows.

Relgan tried to raise his gun and go for his comm unit simultaneously, fumbling both. And then Durok had grabbed him, pushing him face-first against the doors of the Vault.

As the energy surged through his body, his last coherent thought as Relgan was that now he knew what was hidden within.

It was the end. Of everything.

**21. Honored Guests**

"We have the _Orange-Crimson_ and the _Omicron_ on approach, Madam President," said Thross, checking her wrist-comm. "_Omicron_ materializing now."

A soft scraping noise, like the fabric of space and time being gently eased aside, sounded from further down the concourse. A silvery orb appeared and split open. A technician emerged, pushing a blue wooden box on a gravity sled.

Thross raised an eyebrow.

"He's a bit eccentric," explained Romana. She always seemed to be explaining the Doctor. "Hail the—"

Four more figures had emerged from the _Omicron_.

"Er, wait just a moment," she amended.

There were two Time Lords, one in a technician's uniform and one in Spacefleet black with a Lieutenant's stripes, each carrying an end of a length of plas-steel conduit. Attached to the conduit, like the guest of honor at a cannibal's dinner party, was a figure with familiar chestnut curls and angry blue eyes. The hair, eyes, and nose were the largest exposed area of the captive. The rest was swathed in a silvery-gray utility tape, like a mechanic trying to turn into a butterfly. But he didn't appear to be wearing much under the tape.

Behind this spectacle swaggered the leather-jacketed little 'Puuka. She was carrying a distronic rifle of Gallifreyan military make, eyeing the Docks from under the brim of her hat like she was thinking of moving in.

"My Lady President," said the lieutenant, obviously a bit overwhelmed by her presence. He tried to salute and accidentally dropped his end of the pole. The Doctor made a muffled sound of protest as his head hit the floor.

"Lieutenant …" sighed Romana.

"Loryan, ma'am!" He saluted again as he tried to pick up the pole, and dropped it again.

"Loryan. Are you familiar with the concept of decorum? No, on second thought, I don't want to know," interrupted Romana as he started to explain. " I said I don't want to know. Take him to Conference Room Three and give him back his clothes," she raised a despairing eyebrow at the bundle of green-stained garments Arkeros was carrying, "and I'll be with him shortly."

"Yes, my Lady President!" said Loryan. This time, when he saluted, he managed to keep hold of the pole.

Arkeros doffed her hat in passing. "Romana," she drawled.

"I will be with you shortly," repeated Romana, "to settle the matter of your fee."

The 'Puuka nodded and continued on her way. Romana shook her head and rubbed the bridge of her nose. No matter what she did, anything involving the Doctor always turned into either a disaster or a circus—usually both.

"All right," she said, as the Doctor and his escort retreated from sight. Thross said absolutely nothing, with the air of one being too polite to comment. "Hail the Ganedan vessel."

Thross flicked a button on her wrist-comm and stepped back discretely as a hologram-window appeared before Romana and a sonic exclusion-field flickered into being around her. The Archon of Ganeda blinked at her with a single pearly eye, its facial tentacles flushing in greeting.

"Archon Vermillion," said Romana. "Welcome to Arcadia. It is an honor to have you here."

"Lady President," hissed Vermillion, spots of orange swelling and receding across its skin. "The honor is mine. Especially if you have a bottle of Arcadian whiskey for me."

"Would I forget?" asked Romana, smiling. "I'm glad to see you, old friend."

Vermillion reached out and hit a control out of sight. A flashing icon in the corner of the hologram indicated that the line was now secure. "I would not abandon you," it said. "But I have sacrificed much that the Senate would agree to offer you aid."

"I'm grateful," said Romana. Through the hologram, she could see the red gleam of the _Orange-Crimson_ approaching the Docks. "But were they that strongly opposed?"

The orange patches faded, turned a pale blue. A sign Vermillion was troubled. "This is an ugly war, and growing uglier. It was not meant to take so long, or to cost so much. You told us the Daleks could not prevail against the might of Gallifrey."

"They can't. I promise you that. We've destroyed all of their strongholds, now, it's only a matter of time before the remnants of their forces follow."

Vermillion nodded. "My people are still willing to trust in _you._ For the moment. But there are rumors your power is not secure. There are rumors of a vote of no confidence, of a special election. And Kolthan, no one trusts."

"Lord Kolthan," said Romana shortly, "is the leader of a small minority of radical dissidents, and I intend to make sure he stays that way. The High Council may talk of backing his bid for power, but it's an idle threat. He's far too much of a loose cannon for them. They dislike me for being a radical; they'll never accept him."

A sudden vibration ran through the floor under Romana's feet. She craned her neck to see if there was a ship docking, but saw nothing. Then an alarm began blaring, the lights in the concourse flashing orange.

**22. Family**

"Ow! Ow, that hurts! No no no no, not like that, use the sonic screwdriver!"

"All right, all right. Quit yer moanin'. It's got a settin' for duct tape?"

"I would hardly carry duct tape if I didn't have a setting for removing it, now would I? Five hundred and twelve. Ow!"

"Oops …"

The guard outside the door finished checking Elah's ID. "You can go in, Commander," he said, giving her a look that plainly said, _But why would you want to?_

Inside, she found a technician and a Spacefleet lieutenant watching as Arkeros helped the Doctor out of an imprisoning cocoon of tape. She appeared to have gotten the settings wrong, initially; his hair was still smoldering.

He looked older than the last time she'd seen him. She wondered if it was from the passage of time (you never knew anymore how much had passed for the other person) or strain. Or perhaps it was only the bitterness in his expression.

"Doctor," she said, suddenly a bit shy.

"Elah!" he exclaimed. His face suddenly lit up, and he bounded over to her, half-hopping and trying to get the last of the tape off his legs. Apart from the tape, he was wearing only a pair of question-mark boxer shorts. He flung his arms around her. "Elah, it's been too long! Look at you, all grown up!"

She hugged him back. "Uncle! I was grown up the last time you saw me."

"Yes, but look at you now!" He held her out at arm's length, brushing his fingers against the commander's insignia on her uniform. His expression darkened as he looked at it.

"And look at you," she chided. "What happened to your clothes?"

The Doctor scowled like a sulky child and pointed at Arkeros. "_She_ took them."

Arkeros grinned, picked up a bundle of clothes from a chair, and tossed them to him. Elah decided she didn't want to know. She hadn't expected the little alien to succeed in bringing in the Doctor, although Romana had thought she'd stood a good chance.

"Ma'am," said the lieutenant, saluting a bit stiffly. Elah was used to this; she was half-alien, and very few pureblooded Time Lords liked the fact that she was serving with them—even the ones she didn't outrank. But most of them, like this man, gritted their teeth and kept military discipline. "Is the Lady President coming to take custody of the prisoner?"

He sounded slightly desperate. Elah wondered what the Doctor had been up to.

"Shortly," she said.

"Prisoner," snorted the Doctor, straightening his cravat. The look he gave Elah now was accusing, a disappointed how-could-you frown. He'd used to be very good at that look, the picture of innocence betrayed. It was less effective now. Elah didn't know if it was because she was older, or because he'd lost his innocence. She hoped it was the former.

And two could play at this game. "You left," she said. "We needed you. People are dying."

"So?" he said. "They'll die whether I'm here or not. I'd prefer not to be a party to it."

Now there was another kind of accusation in his eyes. "At least I'm _trying_ to stop it," she said.

"Oh? Is that what Romana's been doing?" He made a scoffing noise and turned away.

Suddenly, she didn't want to argue with him any more. "Don't," she said. "Don't let's talk about her." They were too much alike, really, the Doctor and Romana—and she loved them both dearly. They weren't blood relations but they were still family, the only family she had anymore. She didn't want to listen to the arguments between them. "Tell me how you've been."

His expression softened. He opened his mouth, perhaps to apologize, but then he stopped, frowning. "What's that?"

"What—" But then she felt the vibration in the deck, and an alarm began blaring. "I've got to go!" she said, and turned and ran for the door.

**23. The Beginning**

"Is there something wrong?" asked Vermillion, concerned, but Romana had dropped the sonic exclusion field to ask the same question of Thross. The claxon became abruptly louder.

"Unauthorized docking disengagement," said Thross shortly. "The Charalins!"

She hit another button on her comm, and a ring of holograms sprang to life around her, a mobile command station. There was a confused babble, half a dozen departments trying to report at once.

"Stop! External Security, report!" she barked.

"_They're not responding to hails. Integrity of the docking spur at sixty percent and falling._"

"Get a damping field on that ship! Shut them down!"

"What in Rassilon's name are they doing?" whispered Romana.

"Romana!" said Vermillion. "We're detecting a power surge. Unknown weapons system—"

"_Damping field having no effect-_"

The vibration in the deck had turned to an uneven shudder. "Administrator!" snapped Romana. "Release the docking clamps before they tear free, and target particle cannons!"

"But—" said Thross

Romana was already contacting the _Skylark_ on her comm, giving orders to mobilize available Gallifreyan forces. The _Omicron_ whined out of sight a moment later.

Thross had ordered the docking clamps to disengage, not entirely in time. The Charalin vessel tore one clamp free, damaging its own hull and making the docking spur lash alarmingly. There was a puff of vapor as one of the other docked ships, damaged by either the motion or by debris, lost hull integrity and decompressed.

A flash of light backlit Vermillion's image, which shuddered, flared and went out just in time to reveal another, larger flash—an expanding ball of flame. "Weapons stations, fire on that ship!" yelled Thross. "I don't care if you can't get a lock, aim it manually if you have to!"

"Vermillion!" said Romana, watching the chaos outside the window. She couldn't see the _Orange-Crimson_ behind the flames and debris, and more flames and debris were appearing. A massive explosion that seemed to happen in slow-motion and more than the usual three dimensions signaled the death of a TARDIS—where had the Charalins gotten the technology to do that?

As her wrist comm began to chirp casualty reports, she saw a chunk of red hull come spinning at the shell of the sphere, and realized that the first explosion hadn't hidden the _Orange-Crimson_ after all.

It had _been_ the _Orange-Crimson_.

Elah came running up beside her. "What—"

"Charalin vessel on collision course!" said Thross, in disbelief. "They're going to ram us!"

"Off the concourse, NOW!" bellowed Romana, grabbing Elah's arm and running for the nearest exit, shouting orders into her comm the whole way. She glanced back over her shoulder as they dove through the doorway. Thross was behind them, slowed by her attempts to mobilize station security. Behind her, the Charalin vessel, trailing flames and atmosphere, hurtled towards them.

At the last second, a silvery blur came shooting in from the side. Romana had just time to witness it strike the Charalin vessel, merging with it into a massive ball of flame, before it struck the sphere.

The impact knocked her off her feet before the explosive decompression could. The very last thing she saw before the automated systems slammed the interior doors shut was Thross, lifted off the deck and rushing away with the air.

**End Part One Coming Soon: Crisis on Arcadia**


	5. Chapter 5: Crisis on Arcadia

**Author's Note:** Sorry about the delay on this one. I've been sick and then Gmail started eating my correspondence with my betas. (I switched to AOL mail and FINALLY managed to get a reply.) Hopefully I'll be back to updating about once a week. I'm pretty sure this story will end up being about 12 to 15 chapters in the end.

I'm also downgrading the rating to a "T" on the advice of a beta, though the story does still contain language and violence. (I had rated it "M" out of caution.) Please email me if you disagree, I find FFN's rating system rather vague.

**Part Two: Thin Air**

_It's hard to get ahead when the center is bleeding_

_And they carve out the middle and they send it all away_

_Tasteless lead is sitting on our tongues_

_And then we have to worry more about the ones we love_

_Where you see there's smoke there's fire_

_Where you see there's smoke there's fire_

_Where you see there's smoke there's fire_

The Heartless Bastards, "The Mountain"

Chapter Five: Crisis on Arcadia

**24. Aftermath**

They gathered in the conference room, Romana, Elah, the Doctor, Drax, Loryan, Arkeros, Palanzar and Yp Qim, Thross' successor. Qim was a youngish man with long hair and a screamingly orange body-suit.

There was a senior technician in brown robes, a middle-aged Time Lord about halfway through his regenerations, the sort of person who looked "tweedy" even if he probably didn't know what tweed was. He had brown eyes and hair, touched with gray (nothing so distinguished as silver) and the only remotely memorable feature of his appearance was a faint gray cast to his face, hinting at Arcadian ancestry. He'd been introduced as Vanandin, and he worked in the Heart.

The Doctor wondered what Vanandin was doing at the meeting. He was Coriakin's understudy, he knew that, but Coriakin was only on his fifth life himself. He should retain his position for centuries to come, at least. There was no need for Vanandin to be present at such sensitive proceedings, was there?

"Our sensors didn't detect anything," Qim insisted. His skin had gone a sickly green-gray color, even for an Arcadian. "We've run diagnostics three times since the incident, and we haven't been able to detect a fault."

"Impeccable logic," said the Doctor, lounging back in his chair. So far, he was not impressed with Qim. Or anyone else. "'It can't have happened, therefore it didn't. How very comforting."

Romana knocked his feet off the table. "Thank you, Doctor," she snapped. Then she turned on Qim. "That isn't helpful. And this is rather more than an _incident._ I've been in contact with the Ganedans, and they're hesitating to send another envoy. Under the circumstances I can hardly blame them but we need this alliance. I need answers."

She glared at Palanzar, but didn't say anything, yet. He didn't say anything either, just sat there with his jaw set. His face was very pale. The Doctor knew more than Romana thought about Palanzar's duties, but he wondered what had gone wrong.

He discarded Escape Plan #4. The flammability of the hydrogen would create too much of a safety hazard—though he didn't know why he bothered, if people _would_ go off and have wars.

"Most of the delegates are requesting permission to leave Arcadia," Romana went on to the room in general. "Well, most of the survivors. I've told them they can't leave the station until the investigation is completed, but that won't hold them for long. And without them, we have no alliance. We need to find out what happened, and we need to find out _now._ Elah, you'll lead the investigation. Doctor, you'll assist her. Loryan and … Drax, was it? You'll assist also. Drax, you can start by examining the sensor array."

"Yes, Lady President," said Drax, looking a little overwhelmed.

Loryan echoed him, distinctly displeased. With the destruction of the _Omicron_, they had both been temporarily reassigned to Arcadia. But if Drax was being sent to check the sensors, Loryan could figure out his own unspoken assignment; to keep the Doctor out of trouble.

Arkeros yawned ostentatiously, left out of the conversation, and turned into the small rust-colored cat. Everyone except the Doctor, Drax, and Romana jumped. The cat began washing between its toes.

The Doctor discarded Escape Plan #17. He was pretty sure he could persuade Arkeros to step on the banana peel. She'd do it just for laughs. But he didn't have any bananas.

"Qim," said Romana, recalling their attention. "Either get me a useful report, or I'll replace you with someone who can."

Qim bristled, but nodded. Arcadia was a Gallifreyan protectorate. They'd always elected their own leaders, and Romana's authority to replace him was doubtful. Her ability to accomplish it anyway, however, was not. He excused himself and left the room.

"Palanzar. Stay. I have things I want to discuss with you." Her tone was icy. The Doctor had seen cold anger in her before, when they'd traveled together, but this was somehow different. It was driven by no heat of passion, only cold, cold right down to her hearts.

Maybe it had always been that way, and he'd never noticed.

Loryan had been watching the little cat. Arkeros had left his gun propped up on the chair next to her when she'd shifted, and out of the corner of his eye the Doctor saw him edge forward to snatch it while she was distracted. But the cat had the reflexes of—well, a cat. It looked up at him, baring fangs and swelling suddenly to something like a rust-colored lioness. Loryan jerked back to avoid a swipe from a massive paw and fell out of his chair.

The others looked around at the thud. "Mrrr?" said the little cat, looking up with an innocent expression that fooled no one. _Me?_ It went back to its grooming.

Romana ignored her. Dismissed her as unimportant. The old Romana wouldn't have done that, surely? But then, Romana had only met Arkeros once before.

The Doctor was getting as bored with this as Arkeros. He began, in addition to calculating routes of escape (he was currently on #29, which involved string theory, a rubber band, and half an ounce of Nitro-12), to assign probabilities to each of Arkeros' possible next actions. Trouble was, the more improbable something was, the more likely she was to do it … so take an inverse ratio of the paradoxical coefficient …

"I followed your instructions exactly," bit out Palanzar. "You can ask Coriakin. This has to be Dalek involvement." And, as an afterthought, "My Lady President."

"Coriakin assured me that the enemy had no involvement with those timelines," said Vanandin, speaking for the first time.

"I intend to discuss the matter more fully with him later on," said Romana, "but it appears the only variable left unaccounted for is you. My Lord Palanzar."

"I followed your orders, and Coriakin's data," said Palanzar. "There's simply no way that this is the result of an error on my part."

"This is hardly the time," interrupted Elah, glancing pointedly at the other occupants of the room.

"Oh, don't stop on my account," said the Doctor. "I already know what you're up to. Drax only cares about his machines and Arkeros only cares about herself, so you can ignore them as well. And don't worry about Loryan's delicate sensibilities, he hasn't got any." He leaned forward, glaring at Romana. "I know why you don't want this publicized. Because you know it's wrong. And you're smart enough to know it can't work. You're in far over your head."

"I've done what I had to do to defend Gallifrey," said Romana. "And if Gallifrey falls, the rest of the universe will have no defense against the Daleks. Don't quote morals at me."

"If you hadn't started this war—"

"I know how everyone in this room is going to die," said Arkeros, shifting back into humanoid form. And she laughed.

"Everyone?" asked the Doctor, repulsed. He wondered if she'd find it so amusing if she knew …

"All but one," she smirked.

"Arkeros," said Romana. "Thank you for bringing the Doctor back to us. Your payment." She pulled a small velvet bag from her robes and tossed it to the 'Puuka.

Arkeros plucked it neatly from the air and made it disappear. "Pleasure doin' business with ye," she said pleasantly, doffing her hat. Then, shaking her head, "By Janus, what fuckin' morons these mortals be."

"I don't think that's quite what Will said," said the Doctor. He put his feet up on the table again.

"I was quotin' me mother," Arkeros informed him. "Will had t'edit her. For public consumption."

Romana shoved the Doctor's feet off the table. "Loryan will escort you to a travel capsule," she told Arkeros. Loryan scowled. "I don't suppose you'd care to return his weapon?"

Arkeros considered. "No," she said.

Romana sighed and motioned to the door.

"Doctor," said Arkeros as she passed him, offering him her hand.

He was about to refuse when he glimpsed a scrap of paper between her fingers. He was almost certain he didn't want to know, but curiosity killed the cat, as the saying went. Unfortunately, satisfaction had brought it back—judging by the wickedness of her smile.

He shook her hand. It was hot and dry, her body temperature slightly higher than a human's. Then she left him with the paper and followed Loryan.

"What did you pay her?" the Doctor asked idly, when they were gone. _One hippopotamus, two hippopotamus …_

"Gold," said Romana. "Simple enough for us to synthesize atomically, not terribly useful, but it has great value in some technologically primitive cultures."

…_six hippopotamus …_ "Yes, I'm aware of that." _Seven hippopotamus, eight-_

Loryan burst back into the room, wild-eyed. "She's gone! Just vanished! I looked around and she wasn't there!"

**25. Trojan Cat**

"Well, that took longer than I expected," said the Doctor. He glanced down at the paper in his hand. It was only a tiny scrap, and it read, '_Don't let Drax out of your sight—for his sake.'_

"Can she turn into something invisible?" demanded Loryan. "Or maybe she's one of us—"

"She can't," said Romana. "How did you lose her?"

"I blinked, ma'am," Loryan informed her, in a measured voice suggestive of borderline hysteria. "I blinked, and she wasn't. There. Any. More."

"Blinked," repeated Romana, unimpressed. She hit her wrist comm. "Station security? I want an internal scan for alien life forms. Match it against the delegates and any other registered visitors." She paused. "What do you mean, it's a match? No, never mind." She flicked the comm off. "It looks like there are more problems with the sensors. Doctor! You know her better than anyone. What's she up to?"

"I've no idea whatsoever," he replied, still puzzling over her message. He should use the distraction she'd created to make his getaway, but it sounded like Drax was in some trouble. And of all the people on Arcadia, the Doctor was perhaps most reluctant to abandon him. "Of course, you're leaving it a bit late to be asking questions. And you shouldn't have started with that one."

"And which question, precisely, should I have started with?" asked Romana, in the overly calm tones of someone who is about to bite someone's head off.

"Well, to start with …" The Doctor put his feet up on the table again. She let him do it, though a muscle jumped in her cheek. "You might have asked yourself what a Ra'puuka needs with gold."

"I told you, it's valuable. Many cultures use it as a medium of exchange—"

"Romana," said the Doctor patiently, "she's a _'Puuka_. You hired her for her skills in breaking and entering. If she wants something, she'll steal it. Or steal the money to buy it. Besides, the Fae mastered the art of gold synthesis ages ago. _Primitive_ culture, indeed."

Romana stared at him.

"She's been using us all along," the Doctor continued. "She allowed me to sabotage Drax's ship. Then she made sure I knew when the _Omicron_'s rendezvous with the _Skylark_ was meant to take place, and that you couldn't wait for us. She distracted Loryan while I reset our course."

"She wanted to get into Arcadia," Romana realized. "She was planning this all along?"

"The perfect fortress," said the Doctor, in a voice dripping with irony. "Even Arkeros couldn't break in. So she got you to invite her."

"Why?" asked Elah.

"As I said, no idea," said the Doctor.

"And where did she go?" asked Loryan.

"Well, with the sensors down …" said Romana.

"I'm not sure it is the sensors," mused the Doctor. "I suspect she's out of range by now. After all, you've brought a 'Puuka—a creature whose natural habitat is rifts in the fabric of reality—on board Arcadia, a station built on top of a massive rift and housing a convergent tangle of alternate timelines. By now she's probably several hypothetical alternate realities away."

"You can't travel to hypothetical realities," sputtered Romana. "They're _hypothetical._ They're not real! Not even a 'Puuka—"

"Well, no, not normally," said the Doctor. "Not without, say, a Time Ring. You didn't give her one of those, did you?"

Romana turned to Loryan. "She lost it," he said.

"She _said_ she lost it," said the Doctor. "I saw her pocket it in the escape pod."

Romana hit her comm again. "_Skylark._ Get me a sensor-scan of Arcadia station. Tracking device on Time Ring 869." She switched off the comm and smiled triumphantly at the Doctor. "We knew we were sending her into a war zone. That tracking device can locate her across disrupted and diverging timelines. She won't get away."

"Um," said Drax. He sank down lower in his chair, as if hoping people would continue to ignore him. They did.

"I checked the tracking device, ma'am," said Loryan. "It didn't register."

Romana's comm chirped. She listened to the report in disbelief. "What do you mean, you can't locate it?"

"Um," said Drax.

"Aaaand," continued the Doctor, "as a final stroke of genius, you supplied Arkeros with a clever-but-gullible technician."

"Um," said Drax.

This time everyone turned to look at him.

"She said the Daleks had picked up on the tracking device. They were following her. She said. So I … I deactivated it for her."

Everyone continued staring at him.

"Elah," said Romana at length. "Take Drax down to the sensor array. Perhaps we can find a more productive use for his talents."

"Yes, ma'am." Elah motioned Drax towards the door, and he practically bolted out of the room.

"Not you, Doctor," snapped Romana, as he made to follow. "I want a word with you. And you stay, too, Loryan. But wait outside with Palanzar and Vanandin."

26. Bitter

"Well?" asked the Doctor, when they were alone. He wanted to go after Drax, but it would have to wait a few minutes. He didn't want to share Arkeros' last message with Romana. Anyway, Elah was with Drax, she'd look after him.

"Xyritu?" said Romana into her wrist-comm. "Yes. I want extra guards on the Vault. Yes, that will be sufficient." She turned on the Doctor. "You knew she was planning something."

"I suspected," admitted the Doctor. "Since just before the escape pod."

"And you said nothing?"

He met her eyes steadily. She was angry, and anger—the bitter kind, at least—made people ugly, inside and out. Even people who were designed to be beautiful.

That made it easier to forget what he'd once felt for her.

"I wanted to see what would happen," he told her. There was no emotion in his voice whatsoever.

He watched the disbelief in her face. Despite all her previous anger, she hadn't expected that. She hadn't thought he'd betray her.

She turned away abruptly and began to pace up and down. Then she stopped in front of him. "I never asked you to kill," she said. "I've given you courier duties and reconnaissance missions. I could have used you for sabotage—you would have brought the Daleks to their knees."

"You would have done it, if you thought you could get away with it," said the Doctor. "Don't pretend you did it for my sake."

"I won't pretend otherwise. Even if you'd refused your missions, I could have had you imprisoned for it. You would have been less of a liability—political or otherwise."

"Oh," sneered the Doctor. "Is that how you think of me? As a plus or minus sign in your popularity index?"

"If I did, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Rassilon!" She threw her hands in the air. "My opponents talk about favoritism. They say I'm being soft on an old friend, a pacifist with undue influence—"

"Influence! I only wish! I might have stopped this nonsense before it got started—"

"Nonsense? Is that what you call it?" Now it was his turn to be taken aback, at the bitterness in her voice. "You don't know, Doctor. You weren't _here._ I've seen the Daleks. I've been their prisoner. I thought I'd seen evil, I thought I knew what the word meant, but the Daleks … there's nothing else in them." Her eyes went haunted, and he felt a brief flash of sympathy. "They hate, and they kill. That's all. They never stop. They _will_ never stop, unless we stop them—that's why we had to strike before they could develop the technology to challenge us."

"Only it didn't work, did it?" he demanded. "This was never meant to happen. The younger races would have grown to match the Dalek threat. But now they're cannibalizing captured Time Lord technology—"

"They should have been defeated long ago," snapped Romana. She'd pulled herself together, cold and composed once more. "If it wasn't for our own incompetence and hesitation. They should be on the brink of defeat now, by all calculations. That's why I had Arkeros bring you to me. There have been a rash of Dalek assaults in this sector—they appear, strike, and disappear. They don't have any bases here, we destroyed them all long ago, but they keep coming. I need to know where they're coming from, and you're the best intelligence agent I've got."

"And why should I help you?"

She met his eyes steadily. "Because Gallifrey needs you. The universe needs you."

He glared back at her, furious. Because she was right. He couldn't abandon his people. However angry he was, however disillusioned, he couldn't leave them to die.

He was getting there, though.

He let out a breath, shoulders sagging in defeat. "When do I leave?"

"After we deal with this crisis," said Romana. She let her voice become kind. He wished she wouldn't. "I need your help here at the moment. And I want you to visit Project Stitch before you leave Arcadia."

"No," he said. Suddenly, he just felt tired. "I'll help you find the Daleks, but I won't do that for you."

"It's only a genetic alteration. They do it by injection. No one is going to touch your timeline."

"I said no."

"Doctor, that's an order. It's for the good of Gallifrey."

"Is that what you told Susan?" he asked quietly.

This time, she had the grace to look away. Briefly. "Doctor, I'm sorry for what happened at the Gates of Elysium—"

"Sorry you attempted something so monumentally foolish, or sorry it didn't work?"

"Sorry I didn't realize Susan had volunteered," she said. "There's no point in continuing this conversation. Doctor, you _will_ obey my orders. Now, go with Loryan. We all have work to do."

She turned away, and he turned away from her, and walked out the door without looking back.

**Coming Soon: MIA**


	6. Chapter 6: MIA

Chapter Six: MIA

**27. The Gap**

The Doctor found Loryan, Vanandin, and Palanzar waiting with the guards outside the door. "I'd …" he started to warn Palanzar and Vanandin, but reconsidered. "Go right in, I'm sure she doesn't want to be kept waiting. Chop chop!"

He grinned, and Palanzar gave him a suspicious look, but he and Vanandin went in anyway. And these were the men Romana was trusting with the timelines of entire civilizations?

Loryan raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. "Right," he said. "Agent Theta Sigma, you will accompany me to—"

"Now just a moment!" said the Doctor. "I'm not your prisoner any more. You're not in charge of this investigation. You're along to assist me. Unofficially, you're to keep an eye on me as well, but that goes without saying. Otherwise it wouldn't be unofficial. But as long as I'm not trying to escape the station, we shan't have any problems, shall we? Now, I suggest we go and see how Elah and Drax are getting along."

Loryan glared at him, obviously thinking hard. "Commander Elah has been placed in charge of this investigation. You will accompany me to report to her!"

"Quite right," said the Doctor. "After you."

"Negative! Walk in front of me!"

"Oh, very well."

They set off down the corridor. Ah, corridors, the Doctor mused. The staff of life. Well, his life, anyway. If you were tired of walking (or fleeing) down corridors, you were tired of living.

"This way!" said Loryan sharply.

"Well now, I can't very well follow you if I'm walking ahead of you, can I?" asked the Doctor. "What's this way?"

"Transmat station."

"I'd prefer to use the transport tubes," said the Doctor.

"The transmat is more efficient," said Loryan.

"Ah, well, here's the thing. We've had some sort of serious malfunction in the sensor array, yes?"

"Yes …"

"Probably sabotage."

"Obviously," said Loryan.

"And the sensors are controlled through Arcadia's central computer network."

"Ah. You believe the computer has been compromised." Loryan was looking at him the way a teacher might look at an especially dim child who had just gotten his sums right.

"It's the most likely angle of attack. And the computer also controls the transmat system."

Loryan's eyes widened. Then he shook his head. "That's paranoid. There are backup systems—"

"There are backup systems to the sensor array, and that's the pot calling the kettle," retorted the Doctor. Loryan's reaction, while irrational, was understandable—as a member of a society so heavily dependent on machinery (and half machine himself) he wouldn't want to admit the technology was untrustworthy. And if forced to admit it, it would be a serious emotional blow. "The transport tubes are connected to the computer as well, but they aren't quite so dependant on it. And the computer doesn't track who uses them. Besides …" He pulled his screwdriver from his pocket, twirled it, and tucked it away again. "If someone tries to kill us, I'd like to have corporeal form so that I can defend myself."

"This is a waste of time," grumbled Loryan.

"And then, if there should happen to be a catastrophic power surge," the Doctor went on, "I'd far rather be stranded in the tube than scattered through space as a sub-atomic particle wave."

Loryan stopped. "Oh," he said. "Perhaps we should take the tube. But only," he added, "because it will be faster than arguing with you about it."

"Thank you," said the Doctor dryly. The two of them continued on down the corridor, this time side by side, watching each other out of the corners of their eyes.

"It really isn't very likely that the saboteur could cause such a severe power surge," said Loryan, presently. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than the Doctor.

"Never mind the saboteur. Arkeros is on the loose. We have to be prepared for anything."

Loryan made a small sound of disgust. "You really are afraid of her, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes," said the Doctor, almost to himself. "Terrified. Why? Aren't you?"

"No." Loryan brushed his hand over the staser holstered on his hip, perhaps missing his rifle. "She's armed and she's dangerous, but so are Daleks, and I've faced them before. After a while, you start to realize that one death is much the same as another. So are aliens."

There was something uncomfortably familiar about Gallifreyans these days, mused the Doctor. He'd seen this sort of thing before. Falling empires, so busy defending their superiority complexes that they let their potential stagnate.

He'd seen a lot of human cultures go like that. Some of them had gotten over it. Gallifrey … Gallifrey's arrogance, he decided with a sinking feeling in his hearts, had had far longer to poison its culture.

He made a small noise that might have been a laugh, startling Loryan. "Death? Is that what you think I'm afraid of?" he asked. "I've faced death myself, Loryan. I imagine I've seen more of it than you have. And believe me, they are _not_ all equal. But Arkeros … Arkeros is different. If you think death is the worst she can do to you, if you think she's no more dangerous than a Dalek … you haven't been paying attention."

"Tell me, then." Loryan was starting to sound even more annoyed than usual. "Tell me what she does that's worse than death."

"There's madness."

Loryan scoffed.

"Tell me, Loryan," said the Doctor. "What did you feel when you looked into the Untempered Schism?"

The other Time Lord gave him a sharp look, almost missing a step. The Doctor stopped and turned to face him, meeting his glare.

It wasn't something that was spoken of. At the very least, it was a question in appallingly bad taste. The initiation was a private thing, a personal experience in an impersonal society. A relic of an older time, a primal rite both revered for its antiquity and shunned for it.

"Don't tell me she's seen it," said Loryan. His voice was flatly dismissive. "Don't tell me she could face it. She's not—"

"No, she's not a Time Lord," said the Doctor. He felt tired, tired of trying to explain everything to people who didn't want to listen. "She's not one of the younger races, either. Believe it or not, not _all_ aliens are alike. Drax tried to tell you—not that I'm sure he understands himself, but … her people are not from this universe. They're not from any universe, as we understand the term. They're from the broken places in between, the Children of the Gap."

Loryan looked at him blankly. The Doctor wanted to shake him. The IQ of the average Time Lord was … immeasurable in human terms. The Academy measured it in SA, Scholarly Aptitude, with the average score being 100 and the average human ranking about twenty. A Time Lord could, on a good day, calculate ten-dimensional equations in his head. Couldn't tell a joke to save his life, but didn't need a computer to do a spot of math.

So much processing power, so little comprehension.

"They're alien," said the Doctor. "Truly alien. We call ourselves Lords of Time and we act like that's the highest achievement any race could make. But there are beings out there to whom that means _nothing_.

"Take the Ra'Puuka. They don't have an Untempered Schism. They wouldn't understand why we have one, or what it's for. Because it's _part_ of them. Every single one of them is born with a tiny piece of that—or worse—inside their brains. It's always with them. Every time they think about something more abstract than what's for supper, they see _that._"

The other man was shaking his head.

"You're a Time Lord, Loryan," the Doctor pressed on. "You can sense these things. Try it, next time. Really pay attention. It's subtle, but if you look hard enough into her eyes, you'll see eternity."

"They can't," said Loryan. "Nothing could live with that in its head. They'd go—"

"Mad," said the Doctor. He sighed. "Come on. Let's get to the transit tube. I do believe I'm getting tired of walking down corridors."

**28. The Future**

"So how is he?" asked Elah.

"Who, Commander?" asked Drax.

"The Doctor. He was an old friend of my family, you know." She remembered visits, when she was a child. A man with a melancholy face and laughing eyes and a bottle-green velvet coat, pulling candy out of her ears. Her mother said that he'd changed, was changing, that he'd never used to come back to see them. Leela had thought he was mellowing.

Then the visits had become fewer, as she grew and Leela aged. Her father had died in a coup attempt the year before her mother passed away, and then came the War, and no more visits.

"Oh," said Drax, stammering slightly. "I don't know, ma'am. He's been through a few regenerations, you know. After a while you hardly know a man." He looked at her sidelong as they walked to the transmat, trying to guess what she wanted to hear and how much he dared tell her to the contrary. "You'd know him better'n me. But he seemed a little … angry."

"More than a little," said Elah. "Lately, anyway. The only time I see him is when he's talking business with the President. Arguing business, I should say." She sighed. "They used to be very good friends, you know."

She stopped. There was a line of people at the transmat station, evacuating the Docks. Non-essential personnel, many with children in tow. Most of the younger children were screaming or crying, not really knowing what was going on but sensing that it was expected of them. But there was one very young child with black hair and huge blue eyes, staring at her curiously over the shoulder of the woman who carried him. He raised a tiny, pudgy-fingered hand to wave at Elah.

Elah had seen very few children up close. There were no children on Gallifrey, since she'd been one herself, and her off-world travels had been largely confined to diplomacy and battlefields. Tentatively, unsure of the etiquette, she raised a hand and waved back.

Then she brushed past the waiting evacuees, Drax trailing in her wake. "Official business!" she called.

The woman operating the transmat looked up, scowling, took in Elah's rank insignia and gave her a harried salute. "Soon as it clears, Commander."

The light over the chamber turned green. "Sensor Control," said Elah, and stepped inside.

A child. She was going to have a child someday, if Romana was right about the timelines. Children. Her mother had always wanted her to, of course, as had many of the elders of Gallifrey, but she'd been too busy thinking about ships and adventures.

Perhaps it was her experience at the Academy that had done the most to turn her thoughts in that direction. The adults had seen someone who could break the curse of Gallifrey's infertility, but they left her to the mercy of the other children, who saw a half-alien interloper, a teacher's pet, someone _different._ And the adults who saw Elah on a regular basis—the teachers themselves—hadn't been much better.

Elah had gotten the message of their actions more loudly than their words. The ability to have children made her important, but not important enough to protect. Not someone very important at all. On some level, she'd grown up with the impression that _life_ wasn't very important at all.

She'd rejected her own human heritage, trying so hard to fit in. As an adult, of course, she understood that her classmates had taunted her out of jealousy, or boredom, or that she simply made the most obvious target for their innate cruelty. It had nothing to do with her at all.

By that time, she no longer thought of herself as human at all. And natural reproduction was a part of being human.

As an abstract concept, motherhood both revolted and baffled her—to carry another sentient being in one's body like a tumor, risking all sorts of biological accidents along the way, and then hand-rear the resulting infant until they reached the age of a Loomling … how inefficient.

But the wide eyes and snub nose and tiny, perfect fingers stuck in her head. Perhaps it would be bearable after all.

The transmat took them, and they stepped out into Sensor Control. The personnel who greeted them looked just as harried as the woman they'd left behind seconds before.

"This way, Commander."

"You were at the Academy with the Doctor, weren't you?" she asked Drax as they walked. "What was he like?"

Drax considered. "Well, younger," he said.

"Apart from that," said Elah, dryly.

"No, but he was," insisted Drax. "You know, less confident, sort of. The bigger boys used to pick on some of us—specially him, cos he never quite fit in. He didn't used to take things well. Used to get mad and yell at everybody, not that it ever did him much good. Used to get into all sorts of trouble, too."

The more things change, thought Elah. He was still yelling at people, still getting into trouble.

Hard to think of him as a boy being bullied in school. It had always seemed to her that he could do anything. And he was pure-blooded, despite rumors to the contrary. He'd been her hero when she was a child, and yet they'd treated him like he was no better than … her.

But it wasn't herself she thought of when she thought of the Doctor's Academy days. For some reason she kept thinking of the child who had waved at her, even though she knew the Doctor would have been much older.

_Not my child_, she thought. _No one will do that to my child._

**29. The Answering Machine**

"I followed your orders to the letter," insisted Palanzar. His voice had taken on a peevish quality, almost a whine. It didn't help Romana's temper.

"No doubt you did," she muttered. Palanzar was the type. He was efficient at what he did, and he had connections—that was why she employed him. But he was also self-important, small-minded, and petty. He would follow the letter before the law, pretending he hadn't understood what she wanted, and blame her for whatever he managed to make go wrong.

They were walking through the corridors of the Orb, now, the oldest habitation sphere of Arcadia. Transmats were forbidden here, blocked by layers of quantum warp-fields. Or perhaps they'd been forbidden _because_ of the warp-fields. This place predated Rassilon; no one was sure of the origins of its traditions.

It made for a long walk, though. The ceilings were high and arched, thick with frescos and dust and history. The inlaid floor beneath their feet, worn smooth by generations of feet, was a relatively recent addition.

They were both silent for a few blessed minutes, and Romana's Presidential Guards trailed at a discreet distance, silent as ghosts in their black uniforms. But Palanzar never did know when to shut up.

"If there is any fault, it must have been with Coriakin's readings."

"Impossible," said Vanandin. "I've double-checked those readings myself." Palanzar started and glared at the technician as though he'd forgotten he was there. He _was _a forgettable sort.

Vanandin ignored Palanzar's gaze. He was either braver than he looked, Romana thought, or he lacked the imagination to be frightened by Palanzar's temper. Probably the latter.

"I trust Coriakin." Romana fixed Palanzar with a steely glare. "And know this—I will be comparing his statements with yours. I expect them to match. _To the letter._ Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes, my Lady President." Palanzar bowed his head with a feigned diffidence that was even more annoying than his usual snide near-insubordination. "I merely meant to suggest that perhaps there was some outside interference, something subtle, which he might, perhaps, have overlooked."

"Of course. And you may suggest it to him, as well."

She ignored Palanzar's resulting sputters. They'd arrived before the doors of the heart, great slabs of dull metal and black wood flanked by Gallifreyan soldiers and ceremonial Arcadian guards.

"My Lady President," said one of the soldiers. His tone was respectful, but he stepped forward into her path.

"Well?" she asked. "Are you going to open the doors or—ah."

He was holding out a scanner. "My apologies, my Lady, but—"

"Quite right." She placed her palm against the scanner, and it bleeped, confirming her identity. "A sensible precaution."

He repeated the procedure with Palanzar and Vanandin. Then the doors were opened, and they entered the Heart.

It was a vast, ancient room, incorruptible metals turned to dull gray by a million years, banks of equipment lining the circular walls and tended by silent acolytes. In the center of the room, ringed by archaic symbols and a rather more recent guardrail, was the Pit—a yawning black hole, not of depth, but of all dimensions. The last gap between all the woven strands of paradox that comprised Arcadia.

If you looked down into the Pit, it was said, you could see flickers of lights and colors. Echoes of the could-have-beens and never-weres and should-bes.

And suspended above the darkness, filling the room with a dull red glow like light shining through eyelids … the Heart of Arcadia.

Some said it was a relation of the modern TARDIS. Some said it was something older and stranger. Romana knew more than most, and yet so very little. It was a sphere, at any rate. An orb of crystal, perhaps ten feet in diameter, larger on the inside. At times one could see the machinery that composed it, floating by beneath a layer of mist and shadow, throwing silhouettes against the walls.

Apart from the machinery, the Heart contained a star. A brown dwarf, placed inside a spatial bubble and used to power all the might of Arcadia.

And, along with the star, one very old man.

"I'll get you the data on our recent interventions, my Lady," Vanandin said. "I've collected all of the relevant reports—"

"Yes, I'll be wanting to see those as well, but right now I want to speak to Coriakin himself. Contact him," Romana ordered.

Vanandin hesitated slightly, then inclined his head. "Of course." He went to a console and pressed a key. "The comm is ready, my Lady President."

"I prefer to speak to him in person. Please ask him to open the Heart."

Vanandin pressed another button. "_I will speak to the President over the comm,_" Coriakin's voice announced.

Romana raised an eyebrow and marched over, motioning Vanandin to the side. "My Lord Coriakin, I wish to speak to you in person."

"_I will speak to the President over the comm._"

"That's not right," she muttered. The voice had sounded tinny, mechanical. "My Lord Coriakin, open the Heart at once. That is a direct order."

"_I will speak to the President over the comm._"

Ice was forming in both of Romana's hearts now. "That's not live. That's a recording—or a voice synthesizer. When was the last time Coriakin came out of the Heart, anyway?"

She addressed the question to Palanzar. Vanandin had one of those faces that people tended to overlook, even if they managed to remember he was there.

"I communicated with him five hours ago, on the matter of the Charalin," said Palanzar.

"Not communicated with, _saw,_" said Romana. "Did you _see_ him?"

"No, Lady President. Vanandin passed on written instructions."

"I don't keep track of Coriakin's comings and goings, my Lady," said Vanandin. "I believe I last saw him face-to-face two weeks ago. I would assume he's been out since then. Would have assumed," he corrected.

Some of the acolyte-technicians were stopping their work, watching this exchange with rising alarm. "Get it open," Romana told Vanandin.

He checked his controls. "I'm sorry, my Lady President, he's sealed it off. The Heart can only be opened from the inside now."

His expression remained blandly pleasant. Romana fought the urge to grab the little gray-skinned rodent and shake him until he was as frightened as everyone else. "What do you mean, it can only be opened from the inside? What about emergencies?"

"In most emergencies, it was thought the operator would be safer if he had the ability to seal the Heart." Vanandin frowned at last. "I'm afraid it's no use. There's absolutely no way of opening it."

Romana opened her mouth to insist that there _must_ be. Then a thought occurred to her, and she smiled a grim, cold smile. "Oh, I think there's a way," she said.

She was raising her wrist-comm when it beeped. "Yes?" she asked.

"_My Lady President, we've got a sighting on the alien!_"

**30. Oxygen**

Taryn Rus raised her hands over her head, shaking. "Please," she said. "The children."

The little alien's eyes slid over to the young boy and girl half-hiding behind the armchair. Then back to Taryn. The distronic rifle stayed rock-steady in her hands.

Filthy alien. Probably diseased. She was grimy, dressed in worn leather and organic fibers, and she had bruises and scrapes all over her skin. Blood dripped from her nose.

"Beg pardon, Ma'am," she said, tipping her hat to Taryn. "Cold Iron didn't mean t'come burstin' in t'yer livin' room like this. An' I sure wouldn't wanna frighten the little ones. But 'less you wants 'em t'see somethin' _upsettin'_, I'd pull yerself t'gether an' answer th'damned question."

Taryn, moving very slowly, pointed to the cabinet behind the sofa with a trembling finger.

"Thank ye kind," said the alien. She slid off the entertainment center, where she'd been perched, and slipped over to the cabinet, keeping the rifle trained on Taryn the entire time. She opened the cabinet, took out an emergency oxygen mask, and checked that the canister was full. "I'll leave you be. You kids behave fer mama, hear?"

She stepped backwards, fading into nothing as swiftly as she'd appeared. Her crooked grin seemed to hang in the air a second longer than anything else.

The children burst into tears. Taryn ran for the comm and hit the emergency number.

**31. Missing**

"We should have taken the transmat," rasped Loryan. He coughed and wiped at his streaming nose, smearing crimson across his mouth.

"What, after all that?" said the Doctor. It came out far too hoarse to sound lighthearted, sarcastic, bitterly ironic, or anything else besides absolutely wrecked. He spat blood, wiped his eyes, and pushed off from where he'd been leaning against the wall. "Come on. Let's go and check on Drax and Elah."

Loryan looked back at the ruptured remains of the transit capsule they'd just climbed out of. Fortunately, the Doctor had been able to use his sonic screwdriver to reverse the phase-shift and flip them back into this timeline. This timeline was good. It had air.

And a crowd of civilians, who'd been waiting to board the next capsule and were now staring at them in horror. Somebody screamed. Almost theatrically.

"Technical difficulties!" the Doctor called. "Station's closed, come back tomorrow!"

"Where … where were we?" Loryan asked.

"At a guess?" said the Doctor. He coughed again. It had all happened a bit too quickly for his respiratory bypass to save his lungs completely, but he'd suffered only minor damage from the brief vacuum exposure. It was his eyes that hurt the worst. "An alternative reality where Arcadia station was never built, and all of this is empty space and asteroids."

"But how did they know which capsule we were on?" insisted Loryan.

"Oh, very good!" The Doctor grinned at him, and Loryan recoiled. Well, his teeth were probably coated in blood from burst capillaries. But he did so love an intelligent question. No one had asked him an intelligent question in a very long time. He considered hugging the other man but decided against it—Loryan would probably shoot him. "I've no idea!"

"You're mad," observed Loryan.

A Gallifreyan in a security uniform stepped into the station. His jaw dropped. "Rassilon preserve us!"

"Trans-dimensional assassination attempt," the Doctor informed him. "Come on, take us to the control room. We haven't got all day. No chance of a cup of tea, is there? My throat's a trifle raw."

He turned to Loryan. "Just between you and me, I think I'm getting a mite old to be right all the time."

"I would also prefer that you stop," said Loryan, sniffling. He activated his wrist-comm, contacted Transit Control and advised them of the situation.

The corridors had been lit dimly in low traffic zones, mimicking night. Now they were brightening, signaling station-dawn. In some areas the light was rosy, piped in from the captive sun, but in more utilitarian areas, such as here, it was yellow-white for the comfort of those who were used to main-sequence stars. The Doctor was grateful. Too many cultures regarded a red sunrise as an ill omen.

The lights flickered.

"Damage from the crash?" muttered the Doctor. "It wasn't that severe, surely. Here, what's your name? Have you been having trouble with the lights?"

"Guard Third Class Wirrendes, sir. I don't know, sir, I was just stationed here last week."

"Stitch," muttered Loryan, eying the guard suspiciously. Well, more suspiciously than was usual for him.

"Rude," the Doctor muttered at him. "He can't help how he was born. Anyway, mind on business—the lights?"

Loryan clutched his gun and glared at the light fixtures.

A party of Arcadian technicians went galloping past, carrying fire extinguishers. Oh, dear.

"Sensor control, sir," said Wirrendes, stopping in front of a door clearly labeled as such. He tried the keypad. "Sorry, sir, usually there's someone here to unlock it."

"Must be off at the fire," said the Doctor. He knocked at the door. "Elah? Drax? That's funny."

He tried to suppress a growing feeling of dread. He'd thought Elah could look after Drax for a bit. It hadn't occurred to him that whatever endangered Drax (which, let's face it, was usually nothing more menacing than Drax himself) could also put her at risk. He took out his sonic screwdriver and waved it over the door. Nothing happened.

"Stand aside," ordered Loryan. The Doctor looked around to see him raising his disrupter and dove out of the way as the lieutenant atomized the lock.

The door groaned open. Inside, he was greeted by the sight of bank after bank of smashed or exploded instruments, a pall of smoke, and a very still form in a blue uniform lying on the floor.

"Elah!"

He raced in and knelt by her side. There was a smudge of blood at her temple, turning her red hair a shade darker. There was more blood around her nose, and her face was bruised, but she groaned and sat up when he touched her.

"Uncle?" she asked.

"Are you all right?" asked the Doctor. "What happened here?"

"Dunno," she said, grimacing. Her voice was still thick and groggy. "Something hit me from behind."

"And where's Drax?" asked Loryan. "Has he run off somewhere?"

Drax was nowhere in sight.

Coming Soon: Communications 


	7. Chapter 7: Communications

**Chapter Seven: Communications**

**32. Sabotage**

"You should go to Medical, get yourself checked out," said Romana. She was pacing up and down, long sweeping strides devouring the floor again and again to no purpose.

"I'm fine," said Elah. This time (Romana had made that suggestion twice before) there was a touch of frost in her voice. "I'm only _half_ human, after all."

"She says she's fine, Romana," called the Doctor from his seat amid the wreckage. He looked worse that Elah did, face puffy, bruised and bloody, though that was subsiding with the spray from an emergency medical kit. Loryan didn't look much better. They'd explained what had happened with the transit capsule. "We have bigger problems. Someone programmed a power surge that's taken out the sensor records. Started a fire and physically burned out part of the computer."

"Can we trace it?" asked Elah.

"I have traced it," said the Doctor. He had a jeweler's eyepiece screwed into one eye, scrutinizing broken bits of circuit board, and looked every inch a mad scientist. "It was done from here. Whoever attacked Elah …"

_And Drax,_ he didn't say.

"And then smashed the equipment in this room, rendering the station damned near blind," added Loryan. He'd stopped playing the martinet around her, Romana noticed. Either familiarity bred contempt, or vacuum exposure did wonders for your priorities.

"Arkeros?" asked Romana, though she suspected she knew the answer.

"No," said the Doctor. "Believe me, I've checked. The sighting of her coincides too closely with the sabotage. She wouldn't have had time to get from here to there. Or vice versa. Anyway … it isn't quite her style."

Romana looked around. "It's destructive enough."

"Yes, but …" The Doctor waved a hand at the trashed room. "It's mere destruction. Utilitarian. Sane. Boring. As I said, not her style. It's hardly _got_ a style at all."

"And then there's Drax," said Loryan. "What would she want with him?"

"Maybe she wanted something else reprogrammed," said Elah.

"No," said the Doctor again. Romana saw he developed a slightly guilty look whenever Drax was mentioned. "I don't think so."

"Drax is an idiot, not a deserter," agreed Loryan. "He wouldn't simply leave with her."

"Maybe she threatened to hit him," said Elah, rubbing her head.

"No, no, no," insisted the Doctor. "You're forgetting the time problem. It couldn't have been her. Anyway … she seemed to think Drax was in danger from some other source. She warned me to watch out for him, for his own sake."

"And you said nothing?" said Romana. "You left Elah with him, and said nothing? She could have been—"

"I hardly intended to leave them alone," said the Doctor, looking both guilty and angry. "I hadn't counted on my transit capsule being catapulted into a parallel timeline!"

"If you had told her from the beginning, it wouldn't matter that—"

"_Stop that,_" ordered Elah. Everyone (especially Loryan) looked at her in shock. She was giving Romana a hard look. "Ma'am. I can look after myself as well as anyone. I _should_ have looked after myself better. I was already on guard because of Arkeros, and the saboteur. One more warning wouldn't have made any difference. Now if you _must_ fight, please don't do it over me, and please take it outside—my head aches enough already."

"Oh," said the Doctor, looking stricken. The eyepiece fell out into his lap. "I'm sorry, Elah."

Romana waved a hand to dismiss the entire conversation. "Back to practical matters … Doctor, I need you in the Heart. Coriakin's sealed himself in. Or someone has sealed the Heart from the inside. Apparently, no one has spoken to him face-to-face in weeks."

"You overestimate my control over the Heart," said the Doctor.

"Nonetheless," said Romana.

The Doctor sighed. "Oh, very well," he said, bouncing to his feet. "I suggest we stay together, though. You'll recall what Arkeros said. Every person who was in that conference room is in danger."

"What makes you think she was telling the truth?" asked Loryan.

"She was right to warn me about Drax," said the Doctor.

"Yes," said Elah, "but she may have told the truth once to trick you into thinking it was all true."

"She very seldom lies," said the Doctor. "She very seldom needs to. And I have a very bad feeling about this." He gave Elah a worried look.

"In any event, I think more caution is in order," said Romana. "We'll stay together for now."

"And Drax?" asked Loryan. "Are you going to order a search, Lady President?"

A silence settled over the room.

"An alert, perhaps," said Romana. If no one else was going to say it … "I think an active search would be a waste of manpower. Drax is almost certainly dead."

Even the Doctor didn't argue with her.

**33. Scapegoat **

Palanzar prowled around the Heart, his thoughts tracing even more constricted circles than his body. Technicians kept having to scramble out of his way. He only noticed when they weren't fast enough to clear a path for him.

Romana was going to blame this on him. Vanandin might take some of the heat—the little gray bastard hadn't noticed Coriakin was missing, after all—but Palanzar knew enough about politics to know that situations like the Charalin attack required a scapegoat, singular, one person on whom all misfortune could be heaped.

He kept telling himself that he was far too important a person to be sacrificed like that, and far too well known for anyone to believe any unfounded accusations. But how well known was he? And was that an asset to him at the moment? Romana _needed _a high-profile villain. Vanandin wasn't famous enough.

Then, too, Palanzar was feared and hated as the Assassin of Dreams. Up till the past hour or so, he'd enjoyed that image, even cultivated it. Now … now he realized that the public would accept him quite readily as the hand behind this day's work.

"Technician Vanandin," he announced. "I have business to attend to. You will continue to monitor the Heart in my absence."

"Very good, my lord," said Vanandin, with a subservient bow. He paused the moment required by decorum, and turned back to the console he'd been busy at. Probably pretending to be working on something dreadfully important.

"What are you doing there, anyway?" he asked aloud. "I thought you couldn't get Coriakin out."

"No, my lord," said Vanandin. "Lady President Romana has requested that I investigate a spatio-temporal disturbance affecting a transit capsule earlier."

_Smarmy little shit._ Palanzar turned on his heel and strode from the room. He made his way as rapidly as possible to his quarters, and activated the hidden comm unit.

"_You're taking a risk, contacting me under these conditions,"_ warned the voice. "_I assume you have reason._"

"I felt it was a greater risk not to apprise you of the situation." Palanzar cleared his throat, trying to calm himself. In no way, of course, had he called his contact within the Brotherhood in order to receive reassurance. Nor because he needed someone to tell him what to do. It was simply a rational desire to make sure they knew what was going on out here. "Coriakin has been compromised. The Charalin intervention went badly wrong. They—"

"_We are well aware of the actions of the Charalin. Tell me of Coriakin."_

Palanzar told what little he knew, including his concerns for his own career.

"_Your life, rather,_" corrected the voice. "_If the President chooses you as a scapegoat, be sure the charge will be treason._"

Palanzar felt his throat constrict. But before he could answer, the voice continued.

"_Nevertheless, it is unlikely to come to that. We have matters well in hand here. This is a great opportunity for us—the President has failed. The people are looking for scapegoats of their own, and they look to her. For leadership … they may, perhaps, now be ready to look elsewhere._"

"I understand," said Palanzar. Now he was calm. There was a way out of this. "What do you want me to do?"

"_There may come a time,_" said the voice, "_when the President may require … removal._"

"Are you … are you talking about _assassination?_" asked Palanzar, appalled. He would by no means weep if Romana were to come to a sticky end, but … to be involved in such an act himself? No. He had taken oaths of loyalty. It was one thing to support a political rival in a legitimate bid for election (by nearly any means—there being no such thing as "clean" Gallifreyan politics). But to commit an act of violence against the office he was sworn to protect …

"_No,_" said the voice. Palanzar thought his own shock caused him to imagine the slight pause. "_Removal from office. Plans are underway to call for a special election, possibly even to declare her unfit for duty. We may require testimony. Have you ever known her to be careless? Confused in her orders? Reckless, perhaps?_"

"I am sure that, given a little time, I could recall many such occasions," said Palanzar. This was the Gallifreyan politics he knew how to play.

Anyone who was foolish enough to allow themselves to be accused of incompetence was guilty of it.

**34. Kothan**

Lord Kothan, secret (so to speak) head of the Brotherhood, candidate for the Presidency of Gallifrey, and heir to a pile of debts and worthless estates … was having a very interesting day.

A busy day, as well. He'd already made one public address on Gallifrey's most-watched vid-channel, in which he'd called for an investigation into the Charalin treason (but very carefully didn't accuse anyone of any wrongdoing—yet). He'd met privately with several other Senators, projecting an air of calm confidence that the twittering geezers clung to like a lifeline.

Shortly, the Senate would meet more formally. During this meeting, he would continue not to make any accusations. After all, he would point out (after the accusations were made by carefully groomed others) there was no _proof_ of wrongdoing. He would be a steady, reliable voice of reason, a port in a storm.

Everyone would believe Romana was to blame, anyway. Let someone else come off as the hothead. Or everyone else, actually.

Before the Senate session, however, he received a visitor to his chambers. A visitor who had been in contact with a Brotherhood pawn on Arcadia itself.

"I don't think we can rely on Palanzar," said the visitor. "He's too much a coward at heart. He's very resistant to endangering the health of our Dear Little Friend."

Even in a room routinely swept for bugs, and between two men who trusted each other, "assassination" and "President Romana" were words not to be used in the same sentence.

Kothan merely smiled. He was a youngish man, early third regeneration, with a strong-boned face and thick black hair just turning to silver at the temples. Young and vigorous enough for these games, but old enough to be taken seriously.

"I think you overestimate the resistance of cowards," he said. "Handle him carefully. If he becomes frightened enough for his own skin, he can talk himself into just about anything. No, it's brave men who worry me. They can't be herded. A coward … well, with a big enough scare, a coward will leap off a cliff to get away from a shadow. Especially if you trick him into thinking it was his own idea to jump."

"Yes, my lord." The visitor turned to leave.

"Carefully, I said," called Kothan. "A coward is a dangerous tool. He breaks unexpectedly. Be sure our enemies are the ones damaged by the splinters."

**35. Where the Heart Is**

The Doctor dreamed.

He was a young boy, in a young world, and he ran over the red grass in the warm light of a sun like a huge red apple in the sky. A brown dwarf star gave off most of its radiation in the form of heat; the light at noon was dim, like a balmy sunset.

_It was a strong world, as well as young, and it would last for a million years or more. The grass stretched for miles, up the hill where the house was, down to the stream, over to the copse of nut trees that gave children the boy's age hours of fun in the "autumn" collecting snacks while their parents did the more tedious work of harvesting the crop. _

_Far beyond the trees, the edge of the habitat sphere was obscured from sight by distance and vegetation. It was vast enough to produce its own weather patterns, though said weather was regulated by Arcadia's computer system._

_There was a soft breeze over the fields, smelling of cinnamon and flowers. The boy stood barefoot in the soft grass, raising his skinny arms over his head and his face to the sky. He was alone, with no one to hear him, and he shouted._

"_THUNDER!" he yelled. "I'm the King of the Storm, and I call you! THUNDER!"_

The thunder answered.

The Doctor woke with a start, batting away the tissue-knitter someone was waving over his face. "Elah! I'm fine!"

"Everything but your eyes," retorted Romana, shoving his hand away and getting back to work. "Hold still, you fool. You're no use to me in this condition."

The Doctor's eyes focused on the dark hair and green eyes of his unlikely nurse, and he fell silent. He was thinking of a boy, too young to know you couldn't speak to a storm.

The boy grew up, he thought—and it was closer to memory than speculation, but not by much. The boy grew up, and the grown-ups taught him weather didn't listen to you, weather wasn't alive. And the boy almost believed it, but there remained a wild streak in him all his days, and in the bottom of his hearts he remained the King of the Storm.

He'd fallen asleep. How had he managed that?

"Did you drug me?" he asked. He'd been drugged and hexed so many times today he couldn't tell any more.

"Nobody drugged you, Uncle," said Elah. She came and sat next to him, taking his arm while Romana put the finishing touches on his bruises. Loryan looked away from the display of emotion, embarrassed. The presidential guards who accompanied them stayed staring straight ahead. They didn't need to look away to pretend not to see something. It was part of their training. "Romana's right," continued Elah. "You're going to get yourself hurt one of these days. You need to get a genetic enhancement."

"Absolutely not." The Doctor sat up straighter, despite the aches in his body. He'd had this body too long, he thought sometimes. It was getting tired. This mind, too.

Sometimes he thought about going mad. Just for a bit. As a vacation.

They were in another transit capsule. Loryan had been hesitant—as had the Doctor—but the only other option was the transmat, and the argument against that still stood.

The question, thought the Doctor, was this—how had his and Loryan's capsule been targeted in the first place? His biology might be a bit odd for a Time Lord's, and Loryan's was significantly enhanced, but neither was distinctive enough. Even if somebody hadn't been in the act of sabotaging Arcadia's sensors at the time.

There were, of course, the TARDISes docked at the station. But the Doctor didn't think they'd have the ability to pinpoint his presence, either.

There was, of course, the question of how the dimensional shift had been arranged to begin with. But until they figured that one out, it would be easier to determine the culprit by their ability to track the Doctor's location.

The transit capsule bumped to a halt. They'd arrived, with no near-death experiences whatsoever. And Station Security had reported no further incidents.

Romana and the others rose to their feet. Elah made as if to help the Doctor.

"I'm perfectly all right," he protested. Good grief, he sounded like his first incarnation. He really _had_ had this body far too long.

"Come on, Doctor," she said, and it was more an order than a request. He let her help him up—the old must sometimes humor the young, after all.

"You should have let Romana see to that bruise," he told her.

"It's fine," she said, shrugging. "It's nowhere near as bad as your injuries."

The Doctor brushed her cheek with his thumb. She looked healthy, eyes bright and alert. But the bruising itself bothered him.

"Vacuum rose," he said. Elah frowned at him.

"What?" said Romana, from the door of the capsule.

"Vacuum rose," said the Doctor. "This bruising here. Elah, you can't remember anything that happened after you were struck?"

"No, nothing," she said. "Are you saying I was exposed to vacuum? But how? I never left the sensor room!"

"Briefly exposed. Presumably the same way Loryan and I were—there's a congruent reality with no air pressure."

"Far too real, if you ask me," muttered Loryan.

"Yes," mused the Doctor. "Remember, Arkeros stole a respirator. And the witness says she had a nosebleed."

"How much tolerance do her people have to vacuum?" asked Loryan. "Anywhere near as much as Time Lords?"

"More," said the Doctor. "I'd say that reality has some importance."

"Indeed," said Romana. "Something else for Vanandin to look into. Or to ask Coriakin about, if we ever reach him. Come on."

Vanandin had little to report when they arrived. "I have a reading for a dimensional disturbance surrounding the travel capsule, but no indications what could have caused it."

"Keep trying," said Romana. "Any progress with Coriakin?"

"None. I beg your pardon."

The Doctor had elbowed his way in to check the readings himself. "There's no sign of any other dimensional disturbances," he said. "Nothing in the sensor room."

"Is there some reason there should be?" asked Vanandin. He looked slightly annoyed.

The Doctor ignored it. "Possibly," he said.

"I'll go over the records for that area again more closely. If you're permit me?"

"Hm," said the Doctor, losing interest in the technician and moving aside to allow him access to the console again. He'd been _sure_ there would be something. Maybe it was just too small for the scanners at the Heart to detect it.

On the other hand, if there had been no disturbance, it was more likely that the timeline could be tweaked to bring Drax back to life. The fact that he'd died (presumably) on Arcadia made the prospect somewhat bleak to begin with, because of the station's complex timelines, but it had been done in the past. Normally the Doctor disapproved of such practices, but …

He tried not to look at the Heart too closely. It brought back memories. Most of them weren't even his.

"It's beautiful," said Elah, following his gaze.

"It's a glorified Paradox Machine," he retorted, "and I should never have—"

He stopped abruptly, shaking his head. Said enough already.

"Should never have what?" asked Elah.

"Doctor, if you would?" prompted Romana.

"Oh, very well," said the Doctor. "I feel like a set of keys. You only want me when you want something opened. The rest of the time you stash me in your pocket or lose me under a pile of clutter on the coffee table."

He marched up to the Heart. He could feel it, distantly, in his mind. Like the Pit beneath it, it was at the center of convergent timelines, possibilities swarming around it. The light of it was warm, like the light in his dream.

The Doctor flung his head back and spread his arms. "Open Sesame!" he proclaimed.

Nothing happened.

"Really, Doctor," said Elah. "There's a man trapped in there. This is hardly the time."

"Shh," said Romana. Elah looked at her askance.

"You're right," said the Doctor, a little chagrined. Perhaps he was getting so caught up in his own … prelude to insanity, he decided to call it, that he was forgetting there were innocent lives in the balance. Well, perhaps not so innocent, in Coriakin's case. But a life nonetheless. "I should take this more seriously. But I'm not quite joking, either. My timelines are really remarkably complicated. Potentially complicated enough to interact with the Heart. I _did_ tell you it might not work, Romana."

"It should have." Romana gave him a thoughtful look, as if wondering if perhaps he wasn't trying very hard.

"Yes," agreed the Doctor. "It should have. _If_, and it's a very big if, nothing is actively holding the Heart closed. You're assuming simple sabotage, or a mechanical accident. Perhaps that Coriakin's fallen and can't get up to open the door."

Loryan had been staring at the Heart in awe. And a little unease. Few Gallifreyans were truly comfortable with the Heart, to the extent they understood it. It was very powerful, and it wasn't quite _theirs_. "Well, he's dead, isn't he?" he asked.

"He can't be," said Elah.

"It is unlikely," said the Doctor. "There's _someone_ operating the Heart. But very few people have the aptitude. And it's a skill that takes time to acquire. No, my guess is that he's alive—a prisoner, but alive, acting under duress."

"Whose duress?" wondered Romana.

**36. The Prisoner**

Coriakin raised his head with great difficulty. He was a very old man, with a long, thin beard of snowy white, sick and weak from his captivity, and the neural interface made a heavy crown for his head. It was only the restraining straps his captors had placed on him that kept him from falling out of his chair altogether.

He saw, and heard, what was going on in the control center outside. The red-haired young woman in particular caught his eye. He knew her very well from the timelines, though they had never met in person. Yet.

Most of his mind, as had become usual these last few weeks, was cast into the future. It was the only escape he could make for himself, and it grew narrower day by day, but it was far preferable to the present.

He'd managed to throw his mind clear into his next regeneration. Well, that wasn't so far—this body didn't have long left in it. Odd, to put his mind into another. Like a child, dressing up in the clothes of his adult self. Or vice versa.

He saw the warm blue eyes, the fall of red hair, the faint trace of freckles over her cheekbones. He would never have believed he could fall in love at his time of life—fifth regeneration!—until he'd seen it in his own timeline.

"Elah," he whispered. "Save me, love. Save me soon."

**37. Worry **

"So how do we get him out now?" asked Romana.

"You're asking me?" scoffed the Doctor. Then he deflated slightly. "Sorry," he said, before anyone could complain. "Ah, let's see …"

"Can we cut it open?" asked Loryan.

"Don't be absurd," said the Doctor. Loryan scowled at him, and shot a furtive glance at Romana, apparently aware he'd made a very stupid remark in front of the Lady President of Gallifrey. "The Heart's got all the protection of a TARDIS, and more. It's slightly out of phase with this reality. There's nothing in this universe that could force its way in from the outside."

"I suppose it seemed a good idea at the time," said Romana.

"No, wait, but that's the answer!" said the Doctor, suddenly excited. "Loryan, you're brilliant! The Heart is at the core of Arcadia's timelines. It's impenetrable here. But if approached from another angle … perhaps Palanzar could have a practical use after all. If his team could penetrate an adjacent timeline and gain access to the Heart there …"

"Why, Doctor," said Romana. "That's so absurd … it might just work. It's much more likely to end in disaster, of course. But it might work. Where is Palanzar?"

"I believe he left some time ago to attend to personal business," said Vanandin.

"Really, of all the times," said Romana. "Elah?"

Elah tapped her comm and contacted Palanzar.

"Do you really believe he can accomplish this?" asked Vanandin.

The Doctor was pacing around the Heart, staring at it. Even with his bruises healed, he looked tired, the skin of his face taking on a faint gray hue to match the streaks in his hair. Or perhaps it was merely his Arcadian heritage.

"Oh, absolutely," he called. "I doubt anyone else could, but I suspect he could manage it."

Romana went to his side, lowering her voice. "Are you all right, Doctor?" She told herself it wouldn't do to have him get sick now, when she—when Gallifrey needed him.

"Fine," he said. Even his voice was tired. Or perhaps he was just tired of arguing with her. And he had a face for looking tired, this one, long and sad.

"Don't," she sighed.

He shook his head, irritably. "You need to start carrying emergency breathing apparatus," he told her. "We all do. Best to be prepared. Suits would be best, but bulky. Everyone who was in that conference room needs to be on guard. I'd send someone to look after Palanzar, by the way. The man's an idiot."

"Perhaps idiot is a bit strong, but I take your point," said Romana, with the barest twitch of her lips. "Perhaps I'll send Elah and Loryan. They're trustworthy, at least. And you'll stay with me. Someone seems to have it in for you, but will take quite a bit to get past my guards."

"You feel it too," said the Doctor, pensive. "Treason in the air."

"There are far too many things going wrong around here, with far too little explanation. As much as I'd like to blame everything on your friend Arkeros—"

"My friend! My friend!" sputtered the Doctor. "You hired her to kidnap me!"

"This seems to have started before her arrival," finished Romana. "She's been ominously absent for some time. I would hope that she'd fallen into a temporal discontinuity and broken her neck, but somehow I doubt she'd do anything that convenient."

"It wouldn't slow her down, in any event," said the Doctor. "Just wait for the worst possible time, she'll show up, don't worry."

They both paused to think about this.

"No, never mind," said the Doctor. "_Do_ worry."

**38. Message Received**

The computers that regulated Arcadia were almost a world in themselves.

They were vast, ancient, the product of technologies long lost. They'd been added to so many times over so many millennia that they had long since surpassed the complexity of a single humanoid brain. Like a brain, they'd grown organically.

But they were far less centrally organized than a brain. They more closely resembled a tree—an ancient giant of the rainforest, its branches hosting entire ecologies of other life—subsystems, rogue programs, symbiotes, viruses.

In the very, very oldest parts of the computers—in the sections that had been installed at the colony's founding—there was a sealed compartment. It housed a virtual space in which dwelt an intelligence. An intelligence that predated Arcadia itself.

This intelligence imagined (and, in its virtual prison, therefore inhabited) a room. The room had antique wallpaper of black and gold geometric designs, heavy ebony furniture, a black and white marble floor. A large fire burned in a fireplace with a black marble mantelpiece.

The intelligence was fond of black.

It was a quiet room, a room that spoke of power and domination from behind the throne, of a hand that manipulated nations like finger puppets. The intelligence was aware of this effect, and found it good.

It, or rather he (he imagined himself as a man, pale of face and dark of hair, with a gray-touched goatee and shining dark eyes) was dressed in a simple black suit, and sat in a black leather chair, sipping black tea from a white china cup.

Another cup had been poured, and a second chair imagined. There had been no visitors here since the founding of Arcadia, over a million years ago. This did not deter the man.

Anyway, it was virtual tea. It wouldn't get cold unless he wanted it to do so.

His patience was rewarded, if one could phrase it like that.

"_YER DADDY WAS A TOASTER—_"

A black wooden door which hadn't existed until that moment slammed open. A small woman in a leather jacket and a battered hat fell through just ahead of a bolt from an energy weapon, which scorched half the wallpaper off the far wall.

"_AN' YER MAMMA WAS A SQUID!"_ she finished, and kicked the door shut again.

She turned to the man with an evil grin, doffing her hat. She had a very large blaster-type gun slung over one shoulder. "How do, Koschei. Got yer message."

The Master mended the wallpaper with a thought and an unnecessary snap of his fingers. "I was beginning to wonder if anyone had," he said. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

**Coming Soon: Treason**


End file.
